Relative billing complexity of in‐person versus telehealth outpatient encounters

Abstract

AbstractRationaleVideo visits became more widely available during the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic. However, the ongoing role and value of video visits in care delivery and how these may have changed over time are not well understood.Aims and ObjectivesCompare the relative complexity of in‐person versus video visits during the COVID‐19 pandemic and describe the complexity of video visits over time.MethodsWe used billing data for in‐person and video revisits from non‐behavioural health specialities with the most video visit utilisation (≥50th percentile) at a large, urban, public healthcare system from 1 January 2021 to 31 March 2022. We used current procedural terminology (CPT) codes as a proxy for information gathering and decision‐making complexity and time spent on an encounter. We compared the distribution of CPT codes 99211–99215 between in‐person and video visits using Fisher's exact tests. We used Spearman correlation to test for trends between proportions of CPT codes over time for video visits.ResultsTen specialities (adult primary care, paediatrics, adult dermatology, bariatric surgery, paediatric endocrinology, obstetrics and gynaecologist, adult haematology/oncology, paediatric allergy/immunology, paediatric gastroenterology, and paediatric pulmonology) met inclusion criteria. For each speciality, proportions of each CPT code for in‐person visits and for video visits varied significantly, and patterns of variation differed by speciality. For example, in adult primary care, video visits had smaller proportions of moderate/high complexity visits (99214 and 99215) and greater proportions of lower complexity visits (99211–99213) compared with in‐person visits (p < 0.001), but in paediatric endocrinology, the opposite was seen (p < 0.001). Trends in CPT codes over time for video visits in each speciality were also mixed.ConclusionIn‐person and video visits had differing proportions of complexity codes (typically skewing towards lower complexity for video visits). The complexity of video visits changed over time in many specialities. Observed patterns for both phenomena varied by speciality.