Can anyone please clarify? We have a large family practice, multi specialty clinic. There is some confusion among our coders on what is considered an existing condition or new condition for a provider. Some believe we should be coding (a New Problem – additional work/no additional work) according to if it is a new condition for the whole clinic vs a new condition to the specific provider now seeing the pt for this DOS. It can definitely make a difference for some of our visits.

So far everything I can find refers to this statement "New Problem – A new problem is defined as one that is being addressed by the practitioner (not patient) for the first time. They are outlined by whether or not additional work up is planned"

Please help settle this discussion and get us all on the same page.