Wiki Mid-Level Providers in the Neuro Office

[camilleb]

How are offices utilizing your mid- level providers within the Neurosurgery clinic? Are they running their own clinic, like patients are being scheduled to see just the NP or PA?
Please share your office's setup. Thanks!

 

[lindaconway]

On clinic days our PA sees the patients first, gets the complete history etc, and then turns them over to the doc.
If a patient needs to be seen on a day that the doc is not available we will schedule them in with the PA. If our doc is out on vacation we will schedule a clinic day for patients to see him, but only with the patient's permission and understanding that they're not seeing the doc.
He also assists in all surgeries.

 

[christinemaddux]

Our PA's are used for follow up appointments only. We cannot contract with all payers and "incident to" rules do now allow a PA to see a new patient and bill under supervising provider.

 

[mhstrauss]

Our extenders, for the most part, run their own clinics alongside their supervising physicians, seeing patients for follow-up visits, post-op appts, and a few rare new patients, for those payers that allow it. If they ever have a partial schedule, they'll help their MD, scribing visits. There are some Incident to visits in there; they are aware of the guidelines that must be followed in order to meet incident to billing.

 

[MaryG215]

When you say "our PA sees the patients first, gets the complete history etc, and then turns them over to the doc, are you billing incident to? I'm trying to get some concrete information for our providers stating what the PA can and cannot do and/or document.

 

[avon4117]

our pa's perform stage I visits prior to seeing the physician. I have contracted our np and pa with all payors under the Dr. They also see patients for follow-ups. They have to document properly so I can select the code for each visit. Not much different from the dr. Our pa's have their own clinic days. Dr clinic day is once a week.