What Compliance Officers Should Know About the 2021 E/M Changes

As most healthcare professionals know by now, on January 1, 2021 we will see the most significant changes to Evaluation and Management (E/M) coding in 20 years go into effect. These updates have a lot of coders, auditors and billing managers scrambling.

To that end, recently my colleague Stephani Scott has done a couple of presentations, where she first started by doing a deep dive on all of the changes during her webinar, Everything You Should Know About the 2021 E/M Changes (But were too afraid to ask). Because there was such huge interest in the topic, she hosted a followup webinar, “The 2021 E/M Changes, Everything Else You Should Know”, where she conducted an interactive session where attendees got to audit notes in real time, using these new changes.

But while your billing and coding experts have been busy upgrading their personal knowledge bases and training staff on the changes, many of the compliance officers I speak to have been slow to react. This originally came as no surprise, given that the changes don’t necessarily impact the day-to-day duties of a compliance professional. But what compliance officers should know is that these changes could have a considerable impact on their bottom line, and open their organizations up to a host of new areas of risks and potential audits.

To that end, if you’re one of the thousands of Compliance Officers behind the curve on these changes, or just interested in learning more about these upcoming changes, then today’s your lucky day. Because on Wednesday, November 4, I’ll be hosting a brand new webinar, “What Compliance Officers Should Know About the 2021 E/M Changes,” just for you. During this 60-minute presentation, we’ll cover the most important details you should know, including:

• What is–and is –changing in 2021 with regard to evaluation and management coding and documentation
• What compliance officers should be discussing with their coding and billing colleagues in order to ensure policies, procedures, and educational efforts remain effective
• What new compliance risks the 2021 E/M changes create for compliance programs, and how your compliance program can monitor those risks