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Hi Maria,
Thanks for your question.
Because your doctor has not completed the physical, you should not code a wellness or preventive exam (99384 series). You should instead bill the encounter based on the time your physician spent counseling the patient.
You may code based on the face-to-face counseling minutes with 99401 series.
Some insurers, however, don’t cover preventive medicine counseling codes. In this case, you may bill the appropriate-level office visit code e.g., 99211 - 99205.
If your provider spends the majority of the encounter on counseling, the visit qualifies for time-based billing.
You should link these CPT codes to an appropriate counseling diagnosis. For example, you could assign Z71.9 — Counseling, unspecified, unless the physician’s documentation provides more specificity on the nature of the patient education that he provided.
Alternative: You may instead report the preventive medicine service appended with modifier 52 (Reduced services). The modifier indicates that you provided some of the work a well visit involves, but due to certain circumstances, you couldn’t provide the full service. Therefore, you are reporting a reduced charge.
Please feel free to write if you have any question.
Thanks