Most physician anesthesiologists do not often report evaluation and management (E/M) services, and hence, they may not understand what needs to be done or the documentation requirements that must be met to report the CPT® codes that describe these services. But as more physician anesthesiologists become part of multispecialty groups or participate in a bundled payment episode, it is imperative that they become more fluent in E/M.
When communicating about anesthesia care and services provided to patients by anesthesiologists, we use different terminology, different coding and different metrics for payment. At the same time, anesthesiologists do, in some cases, use the same “billing language” as do other physicians. In these cases, it is critical to understand the jargon, its implications and how to “communicate” what physician anesthesiologists do. If you don’t understand E/M, you will not be speaking the same language as other physicians and may not be able...
