Every patient should have an advance directive on file. Asking a patient about their advance directive is a service that can be billed up to twice a year and pays $80.
Obviously, you should put some thought into how you approach the conversation about advance directives with a patient as death can be a sensitive topic. Any certified medical professional can have this conversation with a patient, it does not need to be the doctor.
You must document an update to a patient’s advance directive status everytime you bill the code. You do not need to get a completed advance directive from a patient to bill the code.
We have made a few changes to the EMR to help you with Advance Directives.
First, you will now see an alert for Advance Directives in the alerts section of a patient’s chart.
We also added buttons under “Plan” that you can use to document your conversation. You’ll see buttons that correspond to:
-Giving a patient the forms
-The patient affirming they already have an advance directive
-Asking the patient how their advance directive is coming along
-Receiving a completed advance directive from the patient
Here is an example of what this looks like:
If you need to give the patient a copy of the advance directive, it can be printed from the documents section of the patient summary screen or from the scheduler.
Once a patient completes their advance directive, you should scan it into their chart.
Let us know if you have any additional questions.