ATS Conduct RUC Survey of Advanced Care Planning CPT Codes
ATS, in collaboration with internal medicine specialty societies, is conducting a survey of the time and intensity of physician work involving advance care planning services:
99497 - Advance care planning including the explanation and discussion of advance directives such as standard forms (with completion of such forms, when performed) by the physician or other qualified health care professional; first 30 minutes, face-to-face with the patient, family member(s), and/or surrogate
99498 - Advance care planning including the explanation and discussion of advance directives such as standard forms (with completion of such forms, when performed) by the physician or other qualified health care professional; each additional 30 minutes (List separately in addition to code for primary procedure)
Codes 99497, 99498 are used to report the face-to-face service between a physician or other qualified health care professional and a patient, family member, or surrogate in counseling and discussing advance directives, with or without completing relevant legal forms. An advance directive is a document appointing an agent and/or recording the wishes of a patient pertaining to his/her medical treatment at a future time should he/she lack decisional capacity at that time. Examples of written advance directives include, but are not limited to, Health Care Proxy, Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, Living Will, and Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST). When using codes 99497, 99498, no active management of the problem(s) is undertaken during the time period reported. Codes 99497, 99498 may be reported separately if these services are performed on the same day as another Evaluation and Management service (99202-99255, 99281-99285, 99304-99337, 99341-99350, 99381-99397, 99495-99496).
The survey has been sent out randomly to selected ATS members to collect information on the time, intensity and medical decision making involved in providing advance care planning (CPT 99497, 99498).
If you have received an email from the ATS regarding the advance care planning survey and have experience providing these services, you are strongly encouraged to participate in the survey. Anonymous survey data will be aggregated and used to establish recommended relative physician work values for these CPT codes.
If you have questions regarding the survey, please contact Gary Ewart (gewart@thoracic.org) in the ATS Washington Office.
