July 2002 • Volume 8 • Number 7 |
Taking two hassles by the horns last month, the Academy asked the federal government to ditch the documentation guidelines for evaluation and management services and to lighten the paperwork burden for certifying patients' needs for durable medical equipment.
"Few things frustrate and discourage family physicians more than the E/M documentation guidelines," said AAFP Board Chair Richard Roberts, M.D., J.D., of Madison, Wis., in a June 4 letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson.
The HHS Advisory Committee on Regulatory Reform voted 20 1 May 16 to eliminate the E/M guidelines. Roberts encouraged Thompson to accept the committee's recommendation. The best solution, said Roberts, "would be to develop more clearly defined E/M codes so that documentation guidelines would not be necessary."
HHS -- particularly through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services -- has been studying ways to make it easier for physicians to comply with federal regulations. A new director has been named for the Physicians' Regulatory Issues Team, and Roberts wrote him June 3, targeting the time-consuming completion of certificates of medical necessity for durable medical equipment.
"Historically, CMS allowed DME suppliers to complete the CMN and then forward it to the physician for review and signature," wrote Roberts. "However, in recent years, CMS has increased the burden on physicians who order DME by requiring that they, rather than suppliers, complete most of the CMN."
Roberts noted that having the physician review and sign the CMN, which has always been part of the process, is enough to indicate the physician's responsibility for the document's contents. He called completing the CMN "a pure hassle in that it makes the physician responsible for doing someone else's paperwork."
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Copyright © 2002 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.