Big News from Dermatology
After causing paranoia about the sun with a resultant pandemic in Vitamin D deficiency, dermatologists finally found a new landmark study to show they deserve making a ludicrous amount of money. The journal JAMA Dermatology suggests that many patients may prefer to learn of their biopsy results over the phone. Wow! Earth shattering! That really changes everything….for nobody but them. It actually allows them to NOT have office follow-ups, which aren’t paid for by insurance companies. Subsequently, this research “justifies” only calling the patient and therefore seeing more people in the office, doing more biopsies and….wait for it….making more money! Hooray for dermatologists. Hooray for research!
Actually, this is a bit cloudy. A f/u visit where there is discussion with the physician is billable and not included in the biopsy bundled fee. There is no global period for CPT 11100. Our vast majority of biopsies are shave biopsies, but occasionally a suture is placed for a punch bx. We dont usually charge for a nurse taking the suture out, but if the pt requests that the doctor discuss the diagnosis and treatment (or the doc feels it’s needed) , it is a reimbursed visit.
So derms actually make more $ by having the patient in to discuss the bx result. It’s free when we call them and tell them the result. I guess that does open the schedule for other patients, but as it is, there’s no way I’d increase my patient load…………I already see about 30 per day, and there’s no way the quality would be the same if I increased the volume.