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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1359230
This article is part of the Research Topic Innovations in Teaching and Learning for Health Professions Educators View all 3 articles

Curriculum Guide for Teaching House Officers and Faculty how to Apply Appropriate Procedure Codes: Using Chemical Denervation as a Model

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
  • 2 Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
  • 3 School of Medicine, Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: The health care system in the United States relies on provider driven initiation of billing and coding for collection of payment and professional fees. Under the umbrella of practice management is the ever changing and sub-optimally taught concept of procedural billing and coding to House Officers, and faculty. Clinical providers initiate billing and coding for the performed procedural encounter, supported by the appropriate documentation. Correct charge capture is dependent on linking appropriate CPT code, J codes that include documentation of waste, modifiers and to collect charges. We discuss a perspective regarding a new curricular methodology that teaches learners to apply an algorithmic approach to correctly code CPT code, J code, and modifier to chemical denervation procedure with high cost Botulinum Toxin. We further recommend use of visuals with algorithm development for other pertinent procedures that is specific to a department. Methods: We developed a curriculum that includes an algorithmic visual, pre & posttest questions, and reflections. It was implemented across various learner types. Results: This chemical denervation curriculum was impactful in meeting the objectives of the course and expanded a learners vision on practice management in that this educational method can be applied to other procedures. Discussion: The results demonstrate a clear gap in practice management education as the pre-course knowledge to apply appropriate codes was low. Learners indicated that especially valuable was the algorithm, which we developed as a tool practitioners can utilize to appropriately account for all aspects of procedural coding; CPT, modifiers and J-codes.

    Keywords: house officer curriculum, Faculty education, Billing and coding, Medical practice management, procedural billing and coding

    Received: 25 Apr 2024; Accepted: 27 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Berri, Beydoun and Johnson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Maryam Berri, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.