Get paid to evaluate
your patients for mental disorders & addiction risk
The Task
TestSTAT publishes computer tests for use over the web. They are taken anywhere on a web-enabled tablet or computer. No software is needed just a web browser.
We help you do psychological testing in your practice meeting increasing requirements to assess addiction risk and mental disorders in medical and other settings. But, we do it in a way that you can bill insurances, including Medicare and Medicaid, for the work you do.
Health care providers (HCPs, or doctors, NPs and PAs) are pressured by government and professional organizations to “screen” patients for mental health issues. No where is this more urgent than when opioids are prescribed. Screening for addiction risk is essential and is called for in the the FDA’s Blueprint for Prescriber Education.
Screening for alcohol and/or drug misuse is critical to the prevention of or early intervention in addiction. For those at risk of developing a serious problem with drinking or drugs, the identification of early warning signs can be enough to change negative drinking or drug use habits. For others, these assessments are important first steps toward treatment of and recovery from addiction.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)
Such screenings are now required by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to be used with at least 50% of traditional Medicare insured patients as part of their Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). Other insurances will likely follow suit. See the section about Primary Care & Mental Health in this website for more about this.
The Problem
Screening measures often require specialized training, and results need to be typed into an Electronic Health Record or EHR for documentation. They require a HCP's time to administer, interpret and write-up in the medical visit, and none of this is paid for. Yet, Medicare is now penalizing HCPs by reducing their gross income for not doing at least nine different PQRS screenings on 50% or more of all patients. Help is needed!
How TestSTAT Helps
Taken on a tablet our Pain Management Evaluation (PME) generates $70 from by Medicare.* It uses the latest diagnostic criteria (DSM-5) to assess for Somatic Symptom Disorder (the old Pain Disorder) and Illness Anxiety Disorder (old Somatoform Disorder) as well as depression, anxiety, alcohol and other relevant issues. The new pain diagnoses are very different and difficult to use, but the PME helps you accurately diagnose and code pain complaints, while ruling in/out mental health issues.
Wellness factors are evaluated using Framingham Heart Study guidelines. The PME uses the best measures available for prediction of opioid abuse, and it documents that you have assessed for this in the event of an FDA audit, Medical Board investigation or DEA inspection/raid. Remember it may be the FDA that regulates, but it is the DEA, guns and all, that comes to inspect you.
The PME even incorporates 8 Medicare-required PQRS (now MACRA) measures, six of which are cross-cutting or useful across many medical specialties. It is billable for $70 to Medicare and more to other insurances, when a staff member assists a patient in taking it on a tablet, and s/he can assist more than one patient at a time; e.g., testing three patients per hour can generate $210/hour. Find out more about how TestSTAT’s PME assesses pain and related factors in the next section.
The Problem
Screening measures often require specialized training, and results need to be typed into an Electronic Health Record or EHR for documentation. They require a HCP's time to administer, interpret and write-up in the medical visit, and none of this is paid for. Yet, Medicare is now penalizing HCPs by reducing their gross income for not doing at least nine different PQRS screenings on 50% or more of all patients. Help is needed!
How TestSTAT Helps
Taken on a tablet our Pain Management Evaluation (PME) generates $70 from by Medicare.* It uses the latest diagnostic criteria (DSM-5) to assess for Somatic Symptom Disorder (the old Pain Disorder) and Illness Anxiety Disorder (old Somatoform Disorder) as well as depression, anxiety, alcohol and other relevant issues. The new pain diagnoses are very different and difficult to use, but the PME helps you accurately diagnose and code pain complaints, while ruling in/out mental health issues.
Wellness factors are evaluated using Framingham Heart Study guidelines. The PME uses the best measures available for prediction of opioid abuse, and it documents that you have assessed for this in the event of an FDA audit, Medical Board investigation or DEA inspection/raid. Remember it may be the FDA that regulates, but it is the DEA, guns and all, that comes to inspect you.
The PME even incorporates 8 Medicare-required PQRS (now MACRA) measures, six of which are cross-cutting or useful across many medical specialties. It is billable for $70 to Medicare and more to other insurances, when a staff member assists a patient in taking it on a tablet, and s/he can assist more than one patient at a time; e.g., testing three patients per hour can generate $210/hour. Find out more about how TestSTAT’s PME assesses pain and related factors in the next section.
*If a physician personally does 15-30” alcohol/drug assessment (AUDIT, SBIRT, etc.), Mass. Medicare allows the doctor only $36 (CPT 99408). Yet, if an office staff member assists a patient with the PME (CPT 96102 for ≥31”), Medicare allows $70. You make twice the money by having someone else do a more comprehensive assessment (note: only an HCP can interpret results with the patient).