Translating

[nramirez77]

I just came out of a meeting with Family Practice Drs and they had a question regarding up coding their E/M due to patient needing translating. It is more TIME consuming so if they document their time is that acceptable??

 

[ajs]

I just came out of a meeting with Family Practice Drs and they had a question regarding up coding their E/M due to patient needing translating. It is more TIME consuming so if they document their time is that acceptable??

Any time they document that the face to face time with the patient was more than 50% of the total visit, then time can be used as a key factor for assigned level of service. I would not make a practice of doing this on every patient who requires a translator as each visit will be very different.

 

[donnajrichmond]

The visit can be coded based on time if counseling and/or coordination of care dominates - not just that face-to-face time was more than 50%.
If all that time was just a regular visit - not extra counseling/CofC, and the extra time was because of translation, that might not qualify.

 

[nramirez77]

Thank you very much!! It was hard to try to relay that to the Drs and not to make a habit of that, but I also understand that it does take time.