Wiki New vs Est. & Pain Mgmt vs Anesthesia

hgolfos

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We have a client that provides both anesthesia and chronic pain management services and consequently, some of their patients receive both anesthesia and chronic pain management services.

My question is, when determining whether the patient is new or established, should the anesthesia services count? My instinct on this is that pain management is a different sub-specialty than anesthesia, so any services related to anesthesia would not be considered the same subspecialty as pain management. However their pain and anesthesia claims are billed under the same tax ID and the same specialty.

My problem is, I can't find any official guidelines citing this specific situation. Can anyone point me to them? All I can find is what's printed in CPT. Since it states "exact specialty and subspecialty" I'm inclined to think that anesthesia and pain management would be considered different subspecialties of the same specialty.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
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