02/11/2021

Correcting Billing for E&M-Nursing Home

If I see a new patient, on my floor, in a multi podiatrist nursing home, and then find out he came from another floor, can I bill an e/m visit if it turns out to be a routine foot care visit, as I did a workup on him as if he was a new patient?

If the patient is new to the care of a podiatrist, it would be permissible to bill CPT codes 99307-99310 along with any routine foot care codes, provided you performed a full medically necessary evaluation and management. However, if you were just called in for routine foot care then that is all you can charge. The reason being is because there is always a little evaluation and management within a procedure code. If the patient is seen in the future for any additional care, only the routine foot care services would be billed. Billing an additional E&M code in the future would require a new chief complaint not related to the conditions being addressed with routine foot care.