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Going Down: Weight Counseling by Primary Care Physicians

by Keith McGuinness Public Health Policy

Despite the fact that an increasing number of Americans are obese or overweight, there’s been a decrease in weight counseling offered by primary care doctors.  This is disturbing, but not surprising. Unless the economic incentive to provide intensive behavioral counseling is sufficient there is little reason to expect physicians to change their priorities. View the [...]

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Making the Most of Medicare Obesity Reimbursement – thoughts from a coding perspective

by Maureen Brooks Case Studies

I think Medicare picking up the tab for a defined number of visits would be a help to a practice that wants to start-up a new revenue center. I think the PCP who only sees obese patients periodically, and only when they arrive to the office for a Diabetes or HTN check would not necessarily [...]

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Face-to-Face Behavioral Counseling for Obesity, 15 minutes: 0.74 RVUs

by Thomas McKnight, MD Uncategorized

The AAFP has published guidance on new Medicare preventive services for 2012. You can view them here. This guidance corroborates onofficial early reports from CMS spokespersons. You can view the pfd here.

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Intensive Behavioral Therapy for Obesity: Pub 100-04 Medicare Claims Processing – February 03, 2012

by Keith McGuinness Physician Tools

On February 3, 2012 the CMS Manual System published additional guidance on Medicare claims processing for intensive behavioral counseling. You can download the pdf here: www.cms.gov/transmittals/downloads/R2409CP.pdf. We are interested in your reaction as well as the questions that occur to you as you read the document.

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What About Overweight Docs? Primary care physicians make New Year Resolutions too.

by Keith McGuinness Practice Management

If you are a primary care physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner this year’s resolution may have more clinical significance than ever before. A recent article on Medscape Today is entitled What About Overweight Docs? Physicians Are Talking. The article reports on a recent finding “that 38% of male physicians had a body mass index [...]

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