Behavioral Health Integration (BHI) is a program recognized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that focuses on the improvement of patient mental health. By enrolling patient's in BHI, providers have the ability to manage their patient's mental health on a monthly basis while also being reimbursed for their time. Similar to CCM, BHI focuses on "non-face-to-face" engagements such as time spent on phone calls to the patient, coordinating patient mental health visits, and measuring points of patient mental health.
What You need to know:
Requirements for Patient Enrollment:
The patient must have at least one manageable mental health condition (anxiety, depression, etc.)
The treating practitioner in charge of the overseeing the target patient's care must evaluate the patient's condition(s) and deem BHI services necessary.
The patient must then consent to BHI services
The treating practitioner must dedicate their own time or the time of a clinical staff member in a given calendar month to bill for General BHI.
20 Minute Rule (as seen in CCM) - a patient must receive at least 20 minutes of "non-face-to-face" clinical staff or treating practitioner time directed by a qualified clinical resource in a given month to be billable for General BHI.
Service Components to be Meant:
Initial assessment of patient's behavioral health (clinical staff may facilitate authenticated mental health rating scales that are available to them)
Continued structured assessment of patient health is maintained throughout the length of time the patient is receiving BHI services.
Flexible planning of patient care is offered for patients that are shown to not be improving even with services.
Member of care team or treating practitioner maintains an ongoing relationship with the target patient.
Continuous documentation of time spent with/on the patient per billable calendar month.
How ThoroughCare Makes it Easy:
We provide an initial care plan and BHI screening assessment which automates the process of developing an individualized care plan for the patient
24/7 Access to your individualized ThoroughCare site
Time logged for patients is recorded and documented in the case of an audit
The ability to create/print patient-centered care plans is offered
The option to generate monthly reports and summaries with the click of a button
CPT Billing Codes:
General Code 99484: At least 20 minutes of BHI clinical staff time has been dedicated to the patient within a calendar month.
The BHI program helps manage patient's mental health by providing a patient with a clinical resource who takes time to facilitate and coordinate patient treatment to improve patient quality of life.