Family Medicine Billing for Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS)

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is getting a fresh look in family medicine (FM) physicians in primary care, motivated by interest from recent medical school and residency graduates and a growing body of studies demonstrating POCUS increases quality of care and patient satisfaction.1,2 Outside of a study by Niblock, there is little data available on how much of the recent increase in training has resulted in the successful usage of POCUS in primary care. According to the study, the percentage of all primary care physicians that billed Medicare for POCUS (excluding obstetric ultrasound) from 2012 to 2017 was 9.3%, with over half being FM physicians (52.2%), followed by internists (43.7%), and the small remainder were general practitioners and geriatricians. Although billing Medicare is a rough representation of actual clinical utilization, it gives us a glimpse into the true prevalence of ultrasound integration in clinical practice. The amount of billing data currently available is limited, but that is not surprising as many applications for POCUS are still relatively new, education is still in the growth phase, and barriers in implementation and credentialing continue to challenge FM physicians.

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