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CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK ALERT

Psychotherapy Survey is Coming: Participation is Important!

March 2010

In May 2010, NASW will participate in a national psychotherapy survey sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American Medical Association. The last psychotherapy survey was conducted in 1997 and surveyed the outpatient individual psychotherapy Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes.  The 2010 psychotherapy survey will survey individual, family and group psychotherapy CPT codes.  It will review the work values of these codes to determine whether the values should be increased.  Work values are based on the time, mental effort and judgment required to perform a service, and the stress encountered.  On average, they account for 52 percent of the value of each code.

In 2009, NASW requested compelling evidence from its members to help determine if the psychotherapy codes should be reviewed.  All of the members providing comments (100%) agreed that increases in values were warranted because no increases had been made since the 1990s (Coleman, 2010).

NASW is requesting eligible clinical social workers to participate in the 2010 psychotherapy survey.  The survey will be administered online.  Clinical social workers are eligible to participate if they:   

• have a clinical social work license in their state of practice
• provide mental health services in a solo or group practice a minimum of 15 hours per week
• are familiar with psychotherapy CPT codes and have experience in using them.

The psychotherapy survey is very comprehensive and may take an hour or more to complete.  If you are interested in completing the survey to help determine new work values for the psychotherapy codes, please send the following information to psychotherapysurvey@naswdc.org  no later than May 1, 2010:

• Name
• Postal service mailing address
• E-mail address
• Telephone number
• Practice setting

From the list of interested volunteers, participants will be randomly selected to complete the psychotherapy survey.  NASW strongly encourages clinical social workers to volunteer to complete the psychotherapy survey to help determine new work values for CPT codes.  The results of the survey will be used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services to determine new work values that may result in increases in psychotherapy fees.  Questions about the psychotherapy survey may also be sent to psychotherapysurvey@naswdc.org . 

Resources
Coleman, M. (January 2010). Results of request for compelling evidence to increase psychotherapy CPT codes.  National Association of Social Workers. Available online at http://www.socialworkers.org/practice/clinical/2010/WKF-MISC-35010.ClinicalSW.pdf  

 

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