Here is the regulation pulled from the PDF of Chapter 15 of the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual
Page 193
• Signature and professional identification of the qualified professional who furnished or supervised the services and a list of each person who contributed to that treatment (i.e., the signature of Kathleen Smith, PTA, with notation of phone consultation with Judy Jones, PT, supervisor, when permitted by state and local law). The signature and identification of the supervisor need not be on each treatment note, unless the supervisor actively participated in the treatment. Since a clinician must be identified on the plan of care and the progress report, the name and professional identification of the supervisor responsible for the treatment is assumed to be the clinician who wrote the plan or report. When the treatment is supervised without active participation by the supervisor, the supervisor is not required to cosign the treatment note written by a qualified professional. When the responsible supervisor is absent, the presence of a similarly qualified supervisor on the clinic roster for that day is sufficient documentation and it is not required that the substitute supervisor sign or be identified in the documentation.
Solutions:
1.If the system could automatically apply “the Assigned” therapist as listed in WebPT and push that through to the practice management system as the supervising therapist.
2.Instead of using the ‘send to _____PT for signature’ have the option to request to ‘bill under ______PT’
Ideally having both options to ‘send to’ or ‘bill under’, so that if a PT actually participated in the treatment, they have the option to sign off, but if they did not, the PTA would just send directly to bill without the signature by identifying who was supervising that day. (would be awesome if it defaulted to the assigned therapist in WebPT – PTA only needs to change it if that PT is out of office)
