Prior Authorizations for Psychiatric Medications: A Primer for Frustrated Clinicians

Topics: Practice management | Practice Tools and Tips | Prescription costs

Prior authorization (PA) requirements for medications are time-consuming and frustrating for both clinicians and patients. In this article, we’ll describe how they work, how they affect patient care, and how to most efficiently work around them. The basics PA requirements began in the 1980s as a measure to rein in high-cost procedures like hospita

The New Billing Codes

Topics: Billing | Practice management | Practice Tools and Tips

Just when you thought you had mastered evaluation and management (E/M) codes, CMS launched a new batch of recommendations for medication management codes (99212–99215). Most changes are for the better. Clinicians can now choose whether to bill based on the time spent on the visit or the complexity of their decision making. The definition of complexity