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Wiki Treadmill billing/supervision question

Lisa Bledsoe

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This is a stupid question but here it is anyway:
If a treadmill is performed by a nurse and a physician is not present but does review the results, can the provider bill for the treadmill? My answer is NO - I don't think a treadmill can be performed/supervised by anyone but a physician or NPP. So if a physician or NPP is NOT present this would be a NO NO for performing and/or billing...Is that correct? :confused:
I'm caught in a whirlwind of cardiology issues right now, and this is not my strongest area!! :(
 
As long the doc is onsite I do not think it is an issue that the nurse supervise the actual treadmill, I have observed this many times in the past especially when I worked in the hospital setting. I cannot say for sure but it just never occurred to me that it might be a problem. There was an article I read some time ago about the 99211 issue and an example that was given where you cannot bill a 99211 was when a nurse is supervising a treadmill. That is as close as I can get to seeing this documented. Maybe this will help a little.
 
hELLO,

Debra is correct, the physician does not have to supervise the treadmill but a doctor has to be on-site. Supervision of a treadmill falls under the direct supervision guidelines set by CMS. The physician has to review, interpret the results and provide a report.

Dolores, CPC-CCC
 
and the drama continues...

So now, my cardiologist is arguing that he does not have to be in the building if the treadmill is performed on a non-Medicare patient, so he can still charge for the supervision (even though he isn't there but other providers are)...
Agree??
Disagree??
 
No I disagree, especially in a POS 11, if you are billing using his NPI as the rendering/supoervising provider then he must be in the office suite area while the patient is there. Otherwise you use the supervising provider NPI in field 24J and line 31.
 
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