At the end of every office note, our provider adds a statement similar to this:
"Greater than 50% of the face-to-face time was spent in counseling and discussion of diagnosis and treatment plan. Time spent with the patient was 50 minutes"
I was always under the impression that the time that in this statement is time that the Physician not the nurses, actually spent with the patient. However, I have some people challenging that stating it's the total time that was spent with the patient overall. For example the nurse spent 20 minutes performing a test on this patient and the doc spent 30 mins. Therefore they think 50 minutes should be documented.
Opinions are helpful.
Thanks
"Greater than 50% of the face-to-face time was spent in counseling and discussion of diagnosis and treatment plan. Time spent with the patient was 50 minutes"
I was always under the impression that the time that in this statement is time that the Physician not the nurses, actually spent with the patient. However, I have some people challenging that stating it's the total time that was spent with the patient overall. For example the nurse spent 20 minutes performing a test on this patient and the doc spent 30 mins. Therefore they think 50 minutes should be documented.
Opinions are helpful.
Thanks