December 15, 2023 | By Stephanie Allard, CPC, CEMA, RHIT One area that keeps coming up in my conversations and education sessions is the definition and understanding, or misunderstanding, of the concept of a “problem addressed” during an encounter and how that is applied to E/M services. As treating practitioners document and as we…
November 10, 2023 | By Toni Elhoms, CCS, CPC, CPMA, CRC On countless occasions, I have heard physicians and healthcare providers balk at the notion of learning how to level their E/M services based on medical-decision-making (MDM), and some will even go as far as to say things like “I don’t have time…
April 2, 2021 | By J. Paul Spencer, CPC, COC We now collectively find ourselves one calendar quarter into the new frontier of 2021 outpatient E/M services. Since January 1, I have fielded many questions from my professional contacts regarding how best to look at the newly-engineered medical decision making (MDM) component. As might…
December 25, 2020 | By By Grant Huang, CPC, CPMA The New Year is nearly upon us and with it, implementation of the much-talked-about 2021 E/M guidelines for office/outpatient codes 99202-99215. These guidelines include completely revamping how time works for selecting code levels, which in turn has resulted in brand new rules for prolonged…
October 7, 2022 | By J. Paul Spencer, CPC, COC Early September marked my 33rd year on the administrative side of healthcare. This followed my 56th birthday in April when I officially entered the realm of “pushing 60”. Once you get to be my age, the reaction to my opinion falls into one of…