CODING & DOCUMENTATION

Yes. As long as you spend the time on the same date (i.e., before midnight), direct it to the care of the same individual patient, and spend it on activities that CPT includes in physician or other qualified health care professional time (e.g., documentation or coordination of care), you may count it toward the E/M code level.

No. Collecting vital signs is not a requirement for 99211 and, in the absence of a clinical indication to do so, would not create support for reporting it. When nurses or other qualified clinical staff provide clinically indicated teaching, you can report code 99211 regardless of the amount of time spent.

But there might be a better code to report teaching. For example, you might report 94664 for educating a patient on the use of a nebulizer or inhaler. You also might be able to include the time clinical staff spent teaching a patient toward a principal care management or chronic care management service (in lieu of reporting 99211) if you meet all other code requirements.

However, you should not report 99211 for teaching a patient on the same date you report one of these codes, nor on the same date as a higher-level E/M service. You also should not report injection code 96372 with 99211; most payers will bundle them.