Primary Care Coding Alert

Determine HPI or ROS during assessment for geriatric patients. Your family physician is a pro at assessing and treating medical issues, but you're the pro at getting him paid for his work. Helping him brush up on how he reports E/M services for geriatric dementia can improve the accuracy of your claims, and therefore reduce denials. Expect Combo Problems to Yield High-Level E/M Many geriatric patients have health problems like vascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, or a history of stroke or heart attack. Your FP must consider these health issues when assessing patients for dementia. Your FP should document signs, symptoms, and reasons for the workup using the appropriate office/outpatient E/M code. The level you select depends on what the patient's problems are. If the patient's only health problem is forgetfulness, you will likely use a lower-level code. When a patient has multiple problems, your doctor will typically spend additional time [...]