Washington State Medicaid has new requirements for ordering imaging tests. I ordered a dobutamine Cardiolite stress test for one of my patients. The coder in my office brought me the Cardiac Imaging Questionnaire – CarePlanner/iEX form. It had 41 questions which she gave to me because she can’t tell from the chart how to fill it out! As it turned out I didn’t have to answer all the questions, but it still took a while to figure out what questions I needed to answer and look up the information in the chart.
Physicians usually lose money when seeing patients on Medicaid since the reimbursement is less than the cost. Add in ridiculous paperwork burdens, and they may find that primary care doctors start referring their patients to specialists rather than do the test themselves. Then the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) can pay for the cardiology consult instead, to be followed by the test I wanted to do in the first place, or a more costly cardiac catheterization. If I think a patient needs a test, it’s pretty rare when the specialist does not agree that the patient needs that, or a more expensive test, done. Making it more cumbersome for primary care physicians will likely ultimately raise costs, not decrease them.
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