How to Bill for Co-Treatments

February 6, 2023
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Rick Gawenda
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In this article, I will answer the following questions regarding co-treatments in the outpatient therapy setting:

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  1. To clarify on the last question of inpatient hospital therapy services, if an OT and PT co-treat for 30 minutes each of them may charge 2 units since reimbursement will be part of the DRG? In our hospital system for inpatient therapy we document and put in the appropriate CPT codes for the therapy we provide. From time to time we do co-treat. I have always told our therapists to split the time up like we do in outpatient. This hurts our “productivity” since we are not accounting for all of the time each therapist spends with the patient. Would it be incorrect to have them both put in units to account for their entire time spent since we are not actually being reimbursed for those CPT codes? It seems wrong even if we are not being reimbursed for them. I hope that makes sense. Thank you for your input.

  2. What is the source for the information below? Great info, but never seen this before. Thanks.

    For example, for Medicare in 2023 for 92507, the total work time for 92507 is 60 minutes. This includes 5 minutes pre-evaluation time, 50 minutes of intraservice time, and 5 minutes of post-service time.

  3. Hi Rick:

    What is the source of these answers for us to reference in the future? It is interesting that commercial and private insurance blanket say that the time has to be split. I thought this was handled on a payer by payer basis. Thank you!

    1. The definition of the CPT codes state “one-on-one”, not “two-on-one”. How can you bill a patient for 2 hours of therapy when they only had one hour of therapy?

  4. I had received some different guidance regarding stretching of bilateral extremities. If a therapist is providing stretching and scar massage on the right arm and another therapist is providing the same treatment on the left and each billing 30 minutes that would be the same as one therapist working on both arms for an hour. The patient would not be receiving any additional billing but they would be able to have a shorter session. We always split the time if two therapists are required for a therapeutic activity or gait. What are your thoughts?

    1. Home Health under Part A and a Home Health Agency plan of care is completely different billing and this article does not address that.