Confessions of a Pediatric Management Consultant... Where fame and fortune await those who help keep pediatric practices alive and independent!

Phone Code Update

Written by Chip Hart | Mar 6, 2010 4:14:13 PM

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!