Wiki Basing code on time and incident to

[sesing]

If a physician is basing his code on time, can the time his nurse spends counseling/educating the patient, be counted in the total time of the visit? An example is the physician performs the history, exam and medical decision making, but the nurse spends considerable time discussing diabetic diet, insulin treatment etc. Can the nurse's time be accepted as the couseling/coordination of care element?

 

[j.berkshire]

Look at the CPT definition of billing based on time. It says, "When counseling and/or coordination of care dominates (more than 50%) the PHYSICIAN/patient encounter..."