When Donna Sweet, MD, sees patients for routine exams, death and dying are often the furthest thing from their minds. Regardless of age or health status, however, Dr. Sweet regularly asks patients about end-of-life care and whether they’ve considered their options.

In the past, physicians had to be creative in how they coded for such conversations, but Medicare’s newish advance care planning benefit is changing that.

“I’ve found patients to be appreciative of having it brought up when they’re not terribly ill,” says Dr. Sweet , professor of medicine at the University of Kansas, Wichita. “That way, they can go home and discuss with spouses and kids. It’s nice to be reimbursed for something that needs to be done.”

Staring in 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began reimbursing physicians for advance care planning discussions with the approval of two new codes: 99497 and 99498. The codes pay about $86 for the first 30-minutes of a face-to-face conversation with a patient, family member, and/or surrogate and about $75 for additional sessions. Services can be furnished in both inpatient and ambulatory settings, and payment is not limited to particular physician specialties.

Dr. Sweet said that she uses these codes a couple times a week when patients visit for reasons such as routine hypertension or diabetes exams or annual Medicare wellness visits. To broach the subject, Dr. Sweet said it helps to have literature about advance care planning in the room that patients can review.

“It’s just a matter of bringing it up,” she said. “Considering some of the other codes, the advance care planning code is really pretty simple.”

However, doctors like Dr. Sweet appear to be in the minority when it comes to providing this service. Of the nearly 57 million beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare at the end of 2016, only about 1% received advance care planning sessions, according to analysis of Medicare data posted by Kaiser Health News. Nationwide, health providers submitted about $93 million in charges, of which $43 million was paid by Medicare.

“It takes awhile to learn how to use new codes,” said Mary M. Newman, MD , an internist based in Lutherville, Md., and the American College of Physician’s adviser to the American Medical Association Relative Scale Value Update Committee . “A lot of people simply do not have the time to learn how to code something they haven’t coded before. They have to look it up, and they have to make sure they are complying with the new guidelines. I can see where this is something that’s going to take awhile to learn how to do.”

Challenges deter conversations

During a recent visit with a 72-year-old cancer patient, Bridget Fahy, MD , a surgical oncologist at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, spent time discussing advance directives and the importance of naming a surrogate decision maker. Dr. Fahy had treated the patient for two different cancers over the course of 4 years, and he was now diagnosed with a third, she recalled during an interview. Figuring out an advance care plan, though, proved complicated: The man was not married, had no children, and had no family members who lived in the state.

Although Dr. Fahy was aware of the Medicare advance care planning codes, she did not bill the session as such.

“Even in the course of having that conversation, I’m more apt to bill on time than I am specifically to meet the Medicare requirements for the documentation for [the benefit],” she said.

Time constraints and documentation hurdles act as barriers to using the advance care planing codes, Dr. Fahy said. During a typical new patient visit, for instance, surgeons already have a significant volume of information to discuss regarding evaluation and surgical management of the patient’s condition; often, there is not enough time to discuss advance care planning, she said.

“There are two pieces required to take advantage of the advance care planning benefit code: having the conversation and documenting it,” Dr. Fahy noted. “What I write at the end of a resident note or an advanced practice provider note is going to be more focused on the counseling I had with the patient about their condition, the evaluation, and what the treatment plan is going to be. For surgeons to utilize the advance care planning codes, they have to have knowledge of the code, which many do not; they must know the requirements for documenting the conversation; and they have to have the time needed to have the conversation while also addressing all of the surgery-specific issues that need to be covered during the visit. There are a number of hurdles to overcome.”

Danielle B. Scheurer, MD , a hospitalist and chief quality officer at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, said that she, too, has not used advance care planning codes. The reimbursement tool is a positive step forward, she said, but so far, it’s not an easy insert into a hospitalist’s practice.

“It’s not top of mind as far as a billing practice,” she said. “It’s not built into the typical work flow. Obviously, it’s not every patient, it’s not everyday, so you have to remember to put it into your work flow. That’s probably the biggest barrier for most hospitalists: either not knowing about it at all or not yet figuring out how to weave it into what they already do.”

Primary care physicians are likely in a better position to take advantage of the benefit, Dr. Scheurer said. “Ideally, these conversations would be with physicians that patients already have an established relationship with.”

Overcoming hurdles through experience

Using the advance care planning benefit has been easier said than done in his practice, according to Carl R. Olden, MD , a family physician in Yakima, Wash. The logistics of scheduling and patient reluctance are contributing to low usage of the new codes, said Dr. Olden, a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians board of directors.

Between Sept. 1, 2016, and Aug. 31, 2017, the family medicine, primary care, internal medicine, and pulmonary medicine members of Dr. Olden’s network who provide end-of-life counseling submitted billing for a total of 106,160 Medicare visits. Of those visits, the 99497 code was submitted only 32 times, according to data provided by Dr. Olden.

At Dr. Olden’s 16-physician practice, there are no registered nurses to help set up and start Medicare wellness visits, which the advance care planning session benefit is designed to fit within, he said.

“Most of those Medicare wellness visits are driven by having a registered nurse do most of the work,” he said. “[For us] to schedule a wellness visit, it’s mostly physician work and to do a 30-minute wellness visit, most of us can see three patients in that 30-minute slot, so it ends up not being very cost effective.”

In addition, patients are often hesitant to focus on advance care planning during visits rather than medical conditions and treatment questions.

“Most of my Medicare patients are folks that have four to five chronic medical conditions, and for them to make a 30-minute visit to the office and not talk about any of those conditions but to talk about home safety and advance directives and fall prevention, it’s hard for them to understand that,” he said.

Dr. Newman stresses that while the billing approach takes time to learn, the codes can be weaved into regular practice with some preparation and planning. At her practice, she primarily uses the codes for patients with challenging changes in their health status, sometimes setting up meetings in advance and, other times, conducting a spur-of-the-moment conversation.

“It’s a wonderful benefit,” she said. “I’m not surprised it’s taking awhile to take hold. The reason is you have to prepare for these visits. It takes preparation, including a chart review.”

A common misconception is that the visit must be scheduled separately and cannot be added to another visit, she said. Doctors can bill the advance care planning codes on the same day as an evaluation and management service. For instance, if a patient is accompanied by a family member and seen for routine follow-up, the physician can discuss the medical conditions first and later have a discussion about advance care planning. When billing, the physician can then use an evaluation and management code for the part of the visit related to the patient’s medical conditions and also bill for the advance care planning discussion using the new Medicare codes, Dr. Newman said.

“You’re allowed to use a modifier to attach to it to get paid for both on the same day,” she said. She suggested checking local Medicare policy for the use of the appropriate modifier, usually 26. “One thing that’s important to understand is there’s a lot of short discussions about advanced care planning that doesn’t fit the code. So if a patient wants to have a 5-minute conversation – that happens a lot – these will not be billable or counted under this new benefit. Fifteen minutes is the least amount of time that qualifies for 99497.”

Dr. Sweet said that she expects greater use of the codes as more doctors become aware of how they can be used.

“Once people use it a time or two, they will use it a lot more,” Dr. Sweet said. “It takes time to change, and it takes time to make time to do the things we need to do. But especially, as we move into high-value care, something like this hopefully, [doctors] will embrace.”

agallegos@frontlinemedcom.com

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