Primary Care Coding Alert

Question: Another physician told my doctor that he's receiving payment from his contractor for telephone calling codes. My FP would like to start using these codes as well. Does Medicare pay for telephone calls?Colorado SubscriberAnswer: Medicare considers telephone call codes (99441- 99443) to be non-covered services. You can find a code's status in column D of the 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. Time saver: Hate searching the Excel file? Look under Codify's code fee schedule status information for easy to read results as shown below:Silver lining: Your physician technically is getting paid for telephone calls made in relation to performed office visits. "The physician work resulting from telephone calls is considered to be an integral part of the pre-work and post-work of other physician services, and the fee schedule amount for the latter services already includes payment for the telephone calls," according to the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, Chapter 15, [...]