Surgeons Upset with CMS Coding Demands

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently proposed a health policy change that has many medical organizations in protest. CMS wants to require surgeons to document every ten minutes their post-operative patient care activities for certain surgical procedures. What does that mean? It means that time surgeons spend out of the OR working on patient cases would need to be documented every 10 minutes. This healthy policy change that could affect reimbursement rates from CMS has many surgeons up in arms.

In a letter from the American College of Surgeons to CMS indicated that patient care cannot be easily coded in 10 minute increments. Many surgeons review patient files throughout the day and switch from one task to another. The letter stated the chaos that could ensue with a 10-minute coding mandate.

‘The surgeon would have to stop the timer on the first patient’s pathology review, start and stop timers on the second and third patients while answering the phone and then restart the timer on the first patient in the office. This often happens many times in a day.’

The American Medical Association sites the burden and burnout that this policy would create.

‘Asking physicians and their staff to use 10-minute increments to document all their non-operating room patient care activities is by itself and incredible burden, and especially so during MACRA implementation-the most significant payment system change in 25 years.’

It seems clear that CMS is getting strong pushback on this new proposed health policy change. We will have to see if CMS holds to its policy or alters based on the burden physicians are already feeling.

Share your Thoughts:

Do you think this health policy regarding 10-minute coding is reasonable or too burdensome? What do you think CMS should do? What would you do if you were one of these surgeons?

Thank you to Baylor University MBA in Healthcare program for providing a setting of learning and discussion to solve complex health policy issues.

Sources:

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2016/09/13/cms-wants-surgeons-to-code-every-10-minutes?WT.mc_id=Email|DailyBriefing+Headline|DBA|DB|2016Sep13|OldDB2016Sep13||||&elq_cid=1339315&x_id=003C000001tclvqIAA

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