Counsel your patients to quit smoking? You can now get paid under Medicare's new smoking/tobacco cessation benefit

Article Overview

This article explains a Medicare benefit relevant to practices that provide smoking and tobacco cessation counseling, with a focus on gastroenterology patients and office-based billing. It covers the general scope of the new coverage, when it took effect, how providers were instructed to bill during the early implementation period, and how the benefit may be billed when services are furnished by nonphysician practitioners under physician supervision. The piece is aimed at clinicians, practice managers, and billing staff who need to understand whether the service is payable and how the claim pathway is described in Medicare guidance.