PCP and Psychotherapy

What exactly can a primary care dr bill when they have an hour visit with a patient talking about depression and family issues. My Dr doesn't want to turn anyone away and many of her patients are only comfortable with her becuase she's been here 30 years. Also, she wants to do group appointments... Does she need to get additional certification for all this? Please help advise what to bill, thanks!

Don't know about group visit billing but...

Use the E&M visits for depression treatment and time-based coding. I would contend that you can use the prolonged service code 99354 with a 99213 or 99214 if the time spent exceeds by 30 minutes the time assigned to 99213/4 (15 /25 min). You should clearly document start and stop times to be ready for an audit.

Just to preempt a rebuttal by the Editor, I reviewed my Medicare payments and in fact have been paid billing a 99214 and 99354 on a visit.

psychotherapy codes

psychotherapy codes are time based and also have group codes, if in fact that is the service being rendered (90804-90857)