Advance Directive Updates

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.