Hmmm… makes me wonder if the patient can refuse to take the survey and save the 11 bucks.
May not matter much to some but for self-pay it’s really important to itemize that shit up front. Even the staff often don’t have any clue how much it costs. Generally, so long as you aren’t in an ER and don’t end up in one they can’t force you to do much.
I live in discomfort and pain every day and it seems to make me very very flinchy. The last cavity fill I had was way in the back and it was really hard to get to and me squirming because even though I was numbed up well, there was some adjacent nerve tenderness. Not even pain - per se, more discomfort. 
I did have a mole cut off my chest once. Dude seemed older than Methuselah. Instead of rawhide or a bullet to bite on, he did numb me up ok, though. It still felt weird getting sewn up and the thread pulling on my chest.
Hey, do you want to write an article for Mentegram that concludes with, “Can you see how this missed income can really add up?”
Why, citizen, I am right here!
Yeah, 96127 is a code for administrating and interpreting any of a broad range of standardized brief psychological assessments. Things like GAD, SCARED, PHQ2 and PHQ9, among many others. It has nothing to do with experiencing an emotion during a procedure. If the testing tool and the appropriate interpretation are not documented, this could constitute insurance fraud. It is not something any competent doc would touch with a 10 foot pole. We use this kind of thing in all our adolescent check-ups, and use it appropriately. I can see no place during a procedure of any type where it would be indicated.
So Sadists will do alright.
Little Shop of Horrors - Dentist Song - YouTube
It depends on the doctor.
I’ve been with my PCP for like, at least 20 years now. She’s amazing, and respects my wishes with regard to costs.
She knows if she recommends anything, the first thing I ask is what it’ll cost, since insurance never wants to pay for anything, and more often than I’d like I’m between insurers.
This implies that if the patient experiences brief periods of extreme happiness during a medical procedure, they will actually get a reduction in the bill. Right? RIGHT?
So “BRIEF EMOTION” on the bill is a truncated version of “Brief emotional/behavioral assessment”. Would the billing staff see the full description on their computers or just the shortened version?
Is that the latest MAGA cure for COVID!?
Not being on the billing end, I can’t answer directly. I can say that if I bill this code and forget to include my interpretation of the assessment (my nurses enter the actual tool, and they never seem to make mistakes) I get a note from billing to add this to the note before it can be billed. Amazing this actually got through.
I would definitely ask to see the behavioral health certification of the provider. If they can’t produce it, file a complaint for billing fraud.
It’s more expensive, but make sure to get the FastPass so you don’t have to wait in line.
Careful though - they might claim to screen you for mania instead, and there goes your $11 again 
I agree with docosc though - at least in our institution, there are a bunch of checks and balances to make sure we’re not billing unethically. For any operative CPT code, there’s a modifier 22 that indicates the operation was harder than it usually is, and can sometimes (not guaranteed) lead to greater reimbursement. I have had some legitimately tough cases I could have used that for, but we have to like dictate paragraphs about why it was so much harder and basically defend the use of that modifier. It could just be me being lazy (probably, even) but it’s so much extra work that I never use it any more 
. I don’t even think the increase in reimbursement is really that much, either, and that’s if it goes through.
I was thinking along the same lines. The way they describe it, since happiness is also an emotion, so unless you remain completely stoic, according to their logic, they could slap this fee on. Stupid.
I am a little surprised that the mentegram link is still active and also that the site hasn’t been somehow busted into smithereens – though I do see they have a handy “We don’t consider ourselves billing consultants and experts” disclaimer at the bottom. The “7 Things a Person With a Mental Illness Doesn’t Want to Hear” link in the sidebar is an additional layer of irony.
Did I read their site correctly? It looks like they just sell those questionnaires and mental health inventories - so their motivation for telling people to use that code is so you’ll buy their screening tools, yeah? That’s probably why they had to clarify that their site isn’t intended to be like a Coder’s Column where they talk about legitimate coding queries.
Nah, it doesn’t have to be administered by a behavioral health practitioner, but it sure as hell has to exist. If the tool (questionnaire, checklist, there are several types) is not documented, along with the interpretation, it is a fraudulent charge.
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