Trained Clinician's Documentation of Serious Illness Conversations and Use of Billing CPT 99497

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) involves patients and family members in discussions with clinicians about their values, goals, and preferences regarding future medical care. Objectives: To (1) assess whether an ACP conversation using the Serious Illness Conversation (SIC) was initiated and documented; (2) assess which components of SIC were documented; (3) determine how frequently clinicians trained to use the SIC guide used ACP billing codes during the study time period, (4) determine whether there was a significant difference in mortality risk score according to documentation of each component of the SIC. Methods; Thirteen clinicians at three family medicine offices were trained in the Serious Illness Care Program and asked to document SICs in the electronic medical record (EMR). A retrospective chart review of SIC components was conducted in the EMRs of patients who presumably had ACP conversations initiated by the trained clinicians. Patients were identified using the billing codes for ACP conversations and through referrals from another study that requires clinicians to have ACP conversations with their patients. Pearson chi-square test for categorical variables and t-tests for continuous variables were conducted. Results: A total of 157 patients were included in this study; 131 patients referred from another ACP study and an additional 26 patients using the billing codes of ACP conversations. Through retrospective chart review, the mean age of patients was 72 years and 54 were male. Sixty-two (40%) charts had one or more SIC components documented. "Explore key topics" was documented most frequently for 58 (38%) patients by the 13 participating clinicians. Mean mortality risk score was 10.7 and higher scores were significantly correlated with more SIC components documented (r_p = 0.217, P = 0.007). Conclusion: Little use of the SIC guide among trained physicians was found in the EMR. It was expected that provision of an EMR template for documenting the SIC would have facilitated documentation of SICs.