When billing for chronic care management, it is crucial for rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers to maintain accurate records of services they have performed, according to Randy Buchnowski,network executive for The Halley Consulting Group.
Mr. Buchnowski shared the following tip with Becker's Hospital Review. "Chronic care management services can be provided by clinical staff (e.g., a nurse or medical assistant) under 'general' supervision versus 'direct' supervision so the billing provider does not need to be on the premises when these services are performed. It is important to ensure that clinical staff performing these services accurately track all the time spent performing the services. For example, if a nurse spends five minutes playing phone tag prior to contacting the patient... that five minutes counts towards the 20 minutes needed to comply with the billing requirement. Note, this change also gives the RHC/FQHC the option to outsource CCM services."
To learn more about chronic care management, access this story from Becker's Hospital Review.
If you would like to share your RCM best practices, please email Kelly Gooch at kgooch@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in the "RCM tip of the day" series.