Wiki Is there an alternative to 99406/7 for smoking cessation counselings lasting 60 min?

LauraNewYork

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We have an NP who is providing smoking cessation counseling who routinely spends an hour for the first visit. The reimbursement is quite low using 99407. To paraphrase the NP, she says what she does is no different than a social worker visit or a nutritionists visit and yet they have codes with higher reimbursements.
Is there an alternative CPT code we could use? Is Preventive Medicine, Individual Counseling 99401-99403 a possibility? Something else? If so, anyone know if these get reimbursed?
 
Thank you for your reply although my NP would not agree that smoking cessation is less complex than nutrition therapy.
Oh yes, I'm sure the NP would disagree. The committees that decide on the work value units made that declaration by the work value they assigned to the codes. People who feel their work is undervalued have, at times, successfully gotten them increased, but it's a long, arduous process.
 
What the heck is she doing for an hour? If there are other issues, like say a chronic cough or obesity or whatever that is related to smoking, can you bill that with an e&m code based on time and use the dx for tobacco cessation + the other problem dxs? I would assume she must be discussing all the related issues as well because just 1 hour on smoking cessation seems excessive.
 
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