This transcript has been edited for clarity.
As primary care doctors, lifestyle medicine is supposed to be a pillar of our practice. Per the evidence, lifestyle medicine can prevent up to 80% of chronic disease. It’s a real irony, then, that it’s the thing we’re least likely to be paid to do.
Thankfully, though, there are a few hacks to help you keep your patients healthy and yourself financially healthy at the same time.
No. 1: Be as accurate in your coding as possible. We all know working on things like sleep, exercise, and diet with patients takes time, so bill for it. With time-based billing, in particular, you can account for both the time spent in face-to-face encounters and the time spent afterward on documentation and care coordination. Make sure to capture that.
No. 2: Try group visits on for size. Group visit models are great for lifestyle medicine. They give you the flexibility to include longer conversations and deeper lessons on a range of subjects while still getting paid for what you do. Want to host a cooking class? Group visit. Want to bring in a personal trainer or hold a dance class or exercise dance class? Group visit. Meditation, yoga, or even a sleep hygiene class? Group visit.
While there are a few tricks to getting paid for group visits, they’re the same things, such as documenting time and the various parts of the visit, that are key to getting paid for regular visits. They have the bonus of fighting burnout and making your own practice more meaningful as well.
No. 3: Think about joining a value-based care arrangement. While only accounting for 10% of the market right now, value-based care (VBC) is growing rapidly, and it’s easy to see why. By trading quality for the hamster wheel of billing widgets, physicians are freed up to think more about how best to take care of patients, including incorporating more lifestyle medicine. Some VBC models even have their own electronic medical records, freeing you from outdated structures when it comes to documenting patient visits.
No. 4: direct primary care. Direct primary care cuts out the middlemen of payers, letting patients pay physician practices directly for their own care. Like VBC, it opens up possibilities for practicing better medicine, including lifestyle medicine. In addition, it’s often very affordable, with a family of four often paying around $80 a month for a membership for the entire family. It’s a win-win for the doctor and the patient.
Lifestyle medicine is a great way to improve both your patients’ and your own well-being. With a few flexes, it can improve your wallet’s well-being, too.
Tamaan K. Osbourne-Roberts, President/CEO, Happiness by the Numbers, Denver, Colorado, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.