Re: (recording those OP minutes...)

[Guest guest]

Jay -

's right.

In all of our outpatient rehab settings, the therapists now have a

timeline added to the form upon which they rdocument the visit. They

record time in, time out, and then show *what service* they provided --

as well as *when* it was provided during the visit -- along the

timeline. And they complete the rest of the appropriate clinical

information also.

We are in a highly investigated profession (outpatient PT/OT/SLP) in a

highly investigated geographic area (Southwest Florida) at a very

sensitive time (the OIG's worklist for 2000 includes OP rehab).

Our compliance officer asked us to bring him a stack of charts from a

given day, for three hospitals and two OP clinics, and then required

us to document why we were entitled to every single CPT code we used

that day... by demonstrating that the care was provided by licensed

therapists and assistants... and that no therapist charging for a

one-to-one code was responsible for more than one patient at that

time... and that no Part B patient received care except from a licensed

person...

Now, I think that's overkill. Our therapists didn't like it either.

But frankly, the Feds didn't ask us to design how PT works under

Medicare. That was done by before the fact by government economists.

They just said that we may... take it... or leave it. Right?

Incidentally, one therapist said that if we ever explained in detail how

proper professional physical therapy is correctly practiced and charged

in the modern age, that the entire profession would be described as

being out of compliance, since regulation and reality seem to not be

congruent.

's right.

Dick Hillyer, MBA, MSM, PT

Ft. Myers / Cape Coral, FL

Cell