Prolonged visits

A provider coded 99308 and also documented " additional 30 mins spent talking with patient family.....".

The issue: It is my understanding that the provider must document the total time from the CPT® minutes (in this case 15 mins) and the difference of the prolonged services (22 mins) to make the threshold of 30mins or more. However, I have heard that it should be 30mins above the allotted time of the Level of service. So, in other words, the visit is 15 mins and the prolonged services is 30mins in addition. So the collective time would be 45mins.

Any thoughts!

re: Prolonged visits

For Medicare, start and stop times are required.

Provider must meet threshold time for the visit PLUS 30 minutes.

Search the term "prolonged" in the search box on Codapedia, and you'll find a few articles about the topic.