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Practice Alert
February 2012

Mirean Coleman, LICSW, CT
Senior Policy Associate

2012 Psychotherapy Survey is Coming: Clinical Social Workers Wanted

In 2010, NASW participated in a national psychotherapy survey sponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  The purpose of this survey was to determine whether work  and practice expense values of Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes should be increased.  Work values for psychotherapy services are based on time, mental effort, judgment required to perform services, and the stress encountered.  Practice expense values include the costs of clinical labor, equipment and supplies used in a psychotherapy practice. Work values account for 48.3 percent of the total value of each code and practice expense values account for 47.4 percent of the total value of each code.

The results of the 2010 psychotherapy survey conducted by NASW revealed that the psychotherapy codes used by clinical social workers should be revised to reflect current practice.  During the past year, the CPT Editorial Panel has been revising the psychotherapy codes which are now available for survey to determine new work and practice expense values.  A survey must be conducted before the new psychotherapy codes can be utilized by clinical social workers and other mental health professionals.

In March 2012, NASW will conduct a survey of the revised psychotherapy codes to determine work and practice expense values of CPT codes used by clinical social workers in their practice. The survey is also being sponsored by the AMA and CMS.  Clinical social workers must meet the following requirements for participation:

• Have a clinical social work license in state of practice
• Provide mental health services in a solo or group practice at least 20 hours per week
• Used CPT codes for billing purposes within the past year
• Be available to take a training course prior to the survey process
• Have available an hour or more to complete the survey

Clinical social workers who meet the above requirements and would like to volunteer to take the survey to help determine work and practice expense values for psychotherapy codes, should send the following information to psychotherapysurvey@naswdc.org no later than February 29, 2012.

• Name
• E-mail address
• Telephone number
• Specialty practice – Indicate whether you would like to take the survey for individual therapy, play therapy, family/couples therapy, or group therapy

From the list of interested volunteers, participants will be randomly selected to complete the psychotherapy survey of their specialty practice.  NASW strongly encourages clinical social workers to volunteer to complete the psychotherapy survey to help determine new work values for revised psychotherapy codes.  Questions about the survey process may be sent to psychotherapysurvey@naswdc.org