Dermatology Resident Billing And The Impact Of 2021 Evaluation And Management Coding Changes

New billing rules were implemented in 2021 for determining the level of service in outpatient encounters. The purpose of this study was to assess overall dermatology resident billing at our institution and the impact of these rule changes. Billing codes from four months of our resident clinic were extracted from our electronic medical records (EMR) and analyzed. Nationwide Medicare data for dermatologists were used as a comparison. The coding changes were associated with a 13% increase in level 4 codes and a 20% decrease in level 2 codes. Overall, level 3 codes remained the most common codes submitted. Billing patterns were not concordant with nationwide Medicare utilization.