The Intensity of Physicians' Work in Patient Visits — Implications for the Coding of Patient Evaluation and Management Services

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Abstract
Clinicians use visit codes to bill for services involving the evaluation of patients and the management of their care. The existing guidelines for coding and documenting these services, as well as proposed revisions, have been criticized as complex, clinically irrelevant, and costly. We investigated whether easily measured characteristics of physician–patient visits accurately reflect differences in the amount of work performed. Such characteristics might provide the basis for a simple and equitable physician-payment scheme.