Wiki Signature requirement quetion for PA's

[Coastal Coder]

Good Morning,

I have a question about who should be signing office notes.

The Physician sees the patient, the note is done by a transcriptionist, then the note is being checked by the PA and they are signing the note which states the patient was seen by the physician. Is this legal? Can the PA sign a note for a patient they did not see? I don't think so but I am new to the PA billing and need to clarify this so my providers are doing the right thing.



Thanks for you help with this.

 

[thomas7331]

Medicare signature requirements state that the notes must be signed by the author of the documentation. The PA signature would not be sufficient in an audit if the note was authored by the physician. Per the Medicare Program Integrity Manual: "Reviewers shall NOT consider attestation statements from someone other than the author of the medical record entry in question (even in cases where two individuals are in the same group, one should not sign for the other in medical record entries or attestation statements)."

 

[Coastal Coder]

Thank you Thomas, I didn't think so