Question
Is there any way to bill for attending school-based IEP meetings, providing in-services to preschool teachers as well as functional listening evaluations?
Answer
No, there is not. First of all, there are no codes to do so. The team conference code is coming out. Conceivably on a stretch it can be used for IEP meetings, but then the question would be, "Who are you going to bill?" because you've got a mismatch in those particular functions, between desire to bill and who's going to pay the bill. And if you have a contract with the school and the school's agreed to pay you, well then, good. But most insurances will not, and they don't recognize those as falling under the heading of "medical necessity."
If you do a functional listening evaluation for a hearing aid, potentially, that is, billable as a conformity evaluation or a follow-up. But I would recommend do not just stick the kid and do aided, unaided, and sound field, without also doing some real-ear measurements and some other measurements, to really validate and justify a conformity or a follow-up evaluation of the hearing aid.
Robert Fifer, Ph.D., is the Director of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology for the Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He is also an Audiology Online Contributing Editor in the area of Coding and Billing. He is the ASHA representative to the American Medical Association's Health Care Professions Advisory Committee for the Relative Value Utilization Committee in addition to being ASHA's representative to the AMA's Practice Expense Advisory Committee.
Editor's Note - The above is a partial transcript from the Coding and Billing QNA Live e-Seminar that was conducted on Audiology Online on June 27, 2007. (The recorded version is available here - Also the complete edited transcript is available here. The format of the session was different from most traditional presentations as we solicited questions ahead of time and also solicited questions during the event and had Dr. Fifer focus on answering those questions during the live session. We have published the transcript from the seminar in a semi-rough format to preserve the live feel from the session and to accelerate the publication timeline of this information to the Audiology Online readers. Submitted questions are bolded, followed by Dr. Fifer's response. Dr. Fifer is a frequent Contributing Editor for Audiology Online in this area, look for additional Coding and Billing QNA sessions on our home page in the near future. - Paul Dybala, Ph.D. - Editor
