CMS has given patients an incredible gift with its recent decision to pay physicians for their time spent on advance care planning.
You already know how important advance care planning is for everyone — especially older adults with chronic health conditions. It’s time to make sure your referral community knows it, too.
Learn more about the recent Medicare ACP rule here.
TAG Partners has developed a new educational guide your agency can use to educate physicians about the ins and outs of advance care planning. It includes information about billing for hospice patients, and an overview of advance care planning (ACP) billing and its CPT billing codes.
It also includes an at-a-glance look at the primary ACP documents (the living will, medical power of attorney, and “do not resuscitate” order) and guidance on why advance directives are necessary and what should be done with them.
It’s critical to the improvement of overall end-of-life care that physicians begin having these conversations much earlier in the disease process and much more often.
Make the commitment to educate your area’s physicians about the importance of ACP, as well as the fact that Medicare will reimburse them for time spent doing ACP.
Providing this information will help this group think of your agency when it’s time to make a referral.
It also will help your patients take a more active role in their care and become familiar with the language of end-of-life care and their own wishes before they are in the midst of a health crisis.