Society Joins in Expressing Support for E/M Coding Policies Finalized

Last week the Society, along with the American Medical Association and other national organizations, joined together to write the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in expressing support for the policies finalized by CMS to address the historic undervaluation of Evaluation and Management (E/M) codes (office visits) utilized by physicians who deliver care to millions of Medicare patients.

The groups specifically supported:

• Higher physician work relative value units (RVUs) for new and established office visit codes that will result in additional resources to enable physicians to provide care for their patients
• Reduced documentation burden on physicians billing E/M codes to enable physicians to spend more time with patients and less on documentation and paperwork
• Revised guidelines and appropriate payment for care management services to enable physicians to coordinate care with others on the patient’s clinical care team, leading to better health outcomes
• The new visit complexity code that recognizes the additional resource costs inherent to furnishing certain types of office visits

Click here to read the full letter.