Wiki Advanced Care Planning and minimum amount of time needed

[wynonna]

Question: How long does a provider have to spend with a patient in Advanced Care Planning, such as DNR, living will, feeding tubes etc in order to bill?
I know CPT says 30 minutes, but I thought I saw on a Webinar that it's the better part of half an hour, or 16 minutes.
Please Help.
Thanks

 

[Pathos]

Greater than the midpoint

Hello,

You got it, CPT book states 30 minute; however it also states that with time-based codes documentation must support at least greater than the midpoint. For ACP, this means at the very least 16 minutes.

Direct excerpt from the CPT book: "A unit of time is attained when the mid-point is passed. For example, an hour is attained when 31 minutes have elapsed (more than midway between zero and sixty minutes). A second hour is attained when a total of 91 minutes have elapsed." (AMA CPT 2018 Standard - Introduction page XVI).

 

[wynonna]

Hello, Thank you so much! Very helpful