Ask an NP – Confusion about Patient Billing

00:01 So the most confusing part of billing and coding when it came to patient encounters was I don't even like all of it.

00:07 I feel like I had the basis of like, I can assign you a basic E&M code where I'm like, Okay, this specific type of visit, I ran into the weeds immediately when it came to CPT codes and modifiers.

00:21 I just did not have a clue.

00:22 I had no idea what to say when patients asked me how much visits were going to be.

00:26 I didn't know when they said is this part free? What is not? So I think one thing you can do is meet with your biller early on in your career and just ask all of the questions, "Hey, what's covered at a physical? When is this going to start charging this patient? Can patients bring up concerns that they're physical? Or is that going to charge them? What are some things that you think I should know?" Just ask the biller? They'll probably tell you they're like, these are the pitfalls people fall in all the time and ask your peers what the codes are for maybe the 10 most common types of appointments and run them by people in the beginning.

00:57 Be like I saw this person for this. Is this how you would bill it? You'll get the hang of it, but just asking for a lot of reassurance.

01:03 And maybe like bribing your biller with gifts is that was my method. This seemed to work well.