CPT 2010 Update: Non-Face-to-Face Prolonged Services

Posted on 05. Nov, 2009 by jennifer.godreau.

New Year’s hats & horns for looser guidelines that let you count work spread over days.

Groaning thinking of all the time you’ll never capture for complex cases requiring extensive pre-visit time? CPT 2010 brings you hope.

Extensive guideline revisions “liberalize prolonged non-face-to-face services codes,” reports Richard Tuck, MD, FAAP, pediatrician at PrimeCare of Southeastern Ohio in Zanesville. “This CPT change is a really good one.”

Think 99358, +99359 on Non-E/M Day

For 2010, you can count indirect prolonged service time that occurs around the date of the E/M service. “Under the old definition, the non-face-to-face service has to be the day of the E/M,” Tuck explains.

Be careful: Prolonged service codes 99358 (Prolonged evaluation and management service before and/or after direct [face-to-face] patient care; first hour) and +99359 (… each additional 30 minutes [List separately in addition to code for prolonged physician service]) still have to relate to an E/M service that involves patient contact. The prolonged service “must relate to a service or patient where direct [face-to-face] patient care has occurred or will occur and relate to ongoing patient management,” according to the revised notes. CPT places no timeframe on the time that can elapse between the primary service and prolonged service.

“The loosening of prolonged non-face-to-face service code is going to be a great help if you’re going to see a complex child,” Tuck says. You can look at the patient’s chart and make phone calls before seeing the patient and count that time. Here’s a good clinical example from Tuck:

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