5 things doctors need to know about psychiatric collaborative care management

Psychiatric collaborative care is for patients with any mental, behavioral health or psychiatric condition, including substance abuse disorders, who require a behavioral healthcare assessment, care plan and brief interventions. These patients are usually newly diagnosed or need help engaging in treatment.

Psychiatric collaborative care is reported monthly using a time-based code. Medicare pays the billing practitioner directly. The practitioner then pays a psychiatric consultant and behavioral healthcare manager if they are not practice employees. Practices can contract with a psychiatrist who doesn’t participate in Medicare because it doesn’t pay them directly.

Each psychiatric collaborative care management code includes several required elements, such as engaging patients, administering validated rating scales, developing individualized treatment plans, tracking patient follow-up, monitoring patient outcomes, participating in a weekly consultation with a psychiatric consultant and planning relapse prevention.

Practitioners may bill psychiatric collaborative care and chronic care management for the same patient during the same month. Psychiatric collaborative care focuses on behavioral health issues while chronic care management focuses on preventative services and recommended planning for all health issues.

Psychiatric collaborative care requires patient consent allowing the physician to consult with a psychiatrist as well as other relevant consultants. The consent also informs the patient that Part B cost-sharing applies to any services provided.