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[MandyBrooks1980]

I'm pretty sure i Know the answer to this but I want to see what everyone else thinks. If you have a group practice and the Physician is out on vacation so a nurse practitioner sees the patient and signs the chart i know this is "incident to." The ordering physician comes back from vacation 2 days after the service is rendered and then signs off on the patient chart as the supervising physician is this allowed?
Shouldn't another practicing doctor in the facility be the one that signs off as the supervising provider?

 

[Kris Cummings]

"Incident to is a Medicare term. Sometimes other health plans follow Medicare's incident to guidelines. Sometimes other health plans use the term "incident to" but have their own meaning of it. Sometimes plans use other terms such as direct billing, indirect billing, etc... First, you'll need to know who the payer is and what their guidelines are.

If it's Medicare, the visit COULD be billed incident to a supervising physician who is present in the suite during the entire service IF the patient is established, the problem(s) is established, and there is no deviation from the physician's original plan of care, i.e., no new orders, medication changes, etc..., that are not outlined in the original plan of care by the physician.

If you need more direction, find out who the payer is, their guidelines on NP's billing under a supervising physician, and reply to this and I'll gladly help.