Wiki New Patient vs Established Patient

[mnuhfer04]

Hi all, so our office does Primary Care, GYN, No Fault and Comp. We have a patient who has been coming for quite some time for a no fault (car accident) case. Now is having her first annual
GYN visit with us. Would she be considered a new patient or established?
Thanks!

 

[csperoni]

Per the CPT definition:
A new patient is “one who has not received any professional services from the physician, or another physician of the same specialty who belongs to the same group practice, within the past three years.”
If the patient is now seeing an ob/gyn and has never previously seen any ob/gyn in the group, then it is new patient.
If an internal medicine physician (unlikely in my area, but common in more rural) is doing the annual gyn and patient previously saw any internal med in your group, then it would be established.

 

[mnuhfer04]

Great thank you!