Wiki Q6 Modifier

[Smercer45]

I work for an urgent care and we have only nurse practitioners at our facility. We bring in locum tenens that are MD's. How do we bill that and do we use the Q6 modifier? Everything I have read tells me we cant use the Q6 modifier because its only for physician to physician and not physician to nurse practitioner. Additionally, I have read we should use the absent NP npi # but then Medicare is stating we should use the locum tenens NPI. However, we cant credential locum tenens since they are 1099. Please advise

 

[jkyles]

Hi, you're correct that Medicare does not allow locum tenens for nurse practitioners. It's an unfortunate and long-standing problem, but you can't bring in a physician or another NP as a substitute. Here's Palmetto GBA's page on fee-for-service time https://dominoapps.palmettogba.com/palmetto/jjb.nsf/DID/1N9J09DXTU.

You'll need to check with contracted commercial plans to see if they have more flexible policies.