A surreal moment - I am in Richmond, VA listening to Dr.Lander talk about coding during the Pediatric Alliance/VAAAP event while working on the blog. And watching my laptopbattery drain quickly!
About a year ago, we did a quick run-down on the "non face-to-face"codes, more commonly known as "billing for phone calls." It was both encouraging and sad at the same time. Time foran update.
Things are still sad - it's a small minority of PCC clients using thecodes (5%?). However, the news is not all bad.
We have insurance payments, now, in 13 states - CA, MA, NJ, MD, PA,VT, MI, GA, OH, NY, IL, WA, and KY.
We have some major growth in the non-physician phone codeusage (98966-98968).
Below, I've split the results into two categories - how much was charged/paid when the code is paid and how much is charged/paid overall. Note that there isn't a whole lot use of these codes when it's not being paid.
| Code | Average Charge | Average Payment |
| 99441 ($ > 0) | $18.80 | $6.69 |
| 99442 ($ > 0) | $37.33 | $17.28 |
| 99443 ($ > 0) | $55.03 | $25.46 |
| 98966 ($ > 0) | $14.72 | $6.95 |
| 98967 ($ > 0) | $33.75 | $7.91 |
| 98968 ($ > 0) | $35.00 | $35.00 |
| 99441 (overall) | $18.81 | $5.34 |
| 99442 (overall) | $37.26 | $13.85 |
| 98966 (overall) | $15.00 | $6.79 |
| 98967 (overall) | $32.73 | $3.29 |
| 98968 (overall) | $49.00 | $3.50 |
Interesting, certainly, no?
Back to the meeting!