I wanted to have this information available the next time I have a conversation about guns and violence. In case actual facts matter any more. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html
Thank you Dr. Tansey for inviting me to talk to your graduate Adult Cognitive Assessment class on assessment in private practice. I thoroughly enjoy talking with the “next generation” of our profession. This was an interested group who asked great questions and are clearly thinking about how they will fit in the future. I hope …
Continue reading ‘Cognitive Assessment in Private Practice’ »
As a followup to recent “sky is falling” levels of concern about potential large scale flights of practitioners from Medicare, I got curious about how many mental health clinicians provide services to Medicare beneficiaries, and what the recent trends have been. The “provider utilization and payment data” published by CMS at Data.CMS.gov afford an opportunity to …
Continue reading ‘Are Mental Health Clinicians Fleeing Medicare?’ »
How quickly we forget. Just a year ago, every health care practitioner participating in Medicare (on average less than 1% of physicians have opted out of Medicare — though of course now we are hearing scare stories of pending “mass exodus”) the annual “will they or won’t they really impose the 25% or so ‘sustainable growth rate’?” …
Continue reading ‘OMG The Sky Is Crashing In On Us Again!!’ »
How easy? The following information is based on the 2013 “Medicare Data” (Data.CMS.gov). Can you spot the outliers? That’s right. It’s easy to see that the overwhelming majority of clinicians provided 1000 or fewer 53+ minute sessions in 2013. A few obviously break away from the pack providing 1-2,000 such sessions, fewer still between 2-3,000, …
Continue reading ‘It’s Easy For A Payer To Spot An Outlier’ »
53+ minute psychotherapy sessions can hardly be called ‘outlier’ or ‘atypical’ session lengths, as some insurers may now be asserting. However, 53+ minute sessions are not necessarily the most commonly employed increment for treatment visits. Here’s a look at the 2013 numbers from the large Medicare population (approximately 52 million in 2013). Source: https://data.cms.gov/. *Number of …
Continue reading ‘45 Minutes is The Most Common Therapy Session Length’ »
Reports are emerging that insurance companies are directly or indirectly pressuring clinicians to decrease their use of CPT Code 90837 (for a psychotherapy session 53+ minutes in length), or outright refusing to reimburse for these. Clinicians are once again alarmed about potential bias against coverage of reasonable lengths for psychotherapy sessions for appropriate conditions. I …
Continue reading ‘53+ Minute Psychotherapy Sessions Remain a Standard of Care’ »
In February 2014, I estimated that the national average for third party reimbursement for a diagnostic interview could stabilize at around $137 for doctoral providers from 2019-2023, that 45 minutes of psychotherapy would stabilize at about $88 during that same time frame, 60 minutes of psychotherapy at about $131, and psychological testing in the $82-$83 …
Continue reading ‘Back To The Future Of Reimbursement For Psychological Services’ »
Thank you Dr. Tansey for inviting me talk to your graduate students about “Cognitive Assessment in Private Practice.” I always enjoy these opportunities to teach about cognitive assessment in the context of independent practice, and in the broader context of the seismic changes in health care. I hope your students found this worthwhile. Students: Please email …
Continue reading ‘Cognitive Assessment in Private Practice’ »
I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you today! Hope you found the information worthwhile. As promised, here is a link to the slideshow for you to download. Please feel free to use this for personal or professional purposes. View Slideshow From October 14, 2015
