What do you tell a physician who is submitting most of his/her office charges with the levels chosen based on time spent? Shouldn't billing based on time be the exception rather than the rule? This physician went from never billing/documenting time to now using time in every office visit. How would you approach discussing this topic with your physician?
To me, this is a coding issue and a practice management issue. To me, time should be an exception (others may disagree) - keep in mind, time is used when more than 50% of the encounter was spent counseling/coordinating care. Does your physician meet this criteria? It seems to me, correct me if i'm "assuming"

your physician is billing based on 'time' to be 'safe' - maybe they don't feel confident in E/M coding. I would explain to them, if you document, your levels of E/M might actually be higher than based on time ....
Practice management - does your physician have productivity that he/she has to meet? If their coding based on time, how is their schedule layed out? are they quantifying on the number of patients they can see in one day? or is time a burden?
i.e. Dr. A can 'document' 5 patients in one hour, whereas Dr. B coding based on time could see 3 patients in an hour, 20 minutes each. In an 8 hour day, Dr. A has seen 40 patients and Dr. B has seen 24. In a normal office setting, if your seeing 20-22 patients a day, you're covering costs. Anything after, is profit. and this is important because if they are paid bonuses based on productivity, they'll listen! I could go on forever! LOL, but this is about CODING!
Good luck!!
