Is there any documentation that addresses whether you can bill an established code prior to billing a new patient code? This seems counter intuitive however, we have a situation where we have an Immediate Care clinic that is modeled after an Urgent Care (without the Urgent Care designation.) They see people for minor issues and are normally short visits. If the patient is new to our group (We have about 10 clinics in total - primary care & specialty,) we would normally bill a new patient visit. But what we are finding is if the patients that are seen in the Immediate Care environment need a primary care physician, they will usually follow up with one of our primary care clinics and they are being seen for a comprehensive visit that now has to be billed as an established. We would like to keep the new patient visit with the primary care, but just concerned we would be billing an established code prior to the new patient code under the same group and tax ID.
Thanks for any insight.
Thanks for any insight.