Answers to your questions about chronic care management.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began paying for chronic care management (CCM) services on Jan. 1 of this year. While many physicians have embraced the opportunity to finally be paid for the non-face-to-face services associated with managing patients’ chronic conditions, meeting Medicare’s billing requirements is challenging. An article in FPM ’s January/February issue (http:// www.aafp.org/fpm/2015/0100/p7.html) summarized them and provided several tools for developing the necessary patient care plan, getting patient approval for the service, and documenting the necessary 20 minutes of clinical staff time. The article, as well as a follow-up webinar (http://bitly.com/1K07rgn), generated a number of good questions. We’ve compiled the most frequently asked questions and their answers here. Q: What is “calendar month” billing?