Time-based conversations
Advance care planning is billed by face-to-face time, with documentation of who was present, that it was voluntary, and how long the discussion took. Time spent managing other problems does not count toward it.
Palliative visits bill as professional care, not hospice
Community and clinic palliative care teams bill visits and advance care planning as professional services, often for patients who are still getting curative treatment. The tricky part is the patient who later elects hospice, because then who bills what changes overnight.
Book a demoWhere palliative care billing gets delicate
Palliative care has no separate Medicare payment system. It lives inside professional billing rules, which makes documentation and timing do the work.
Visits across settings
Teams see patients in clinics, homes, hospitals, and nursing facilities. The place of service and the visit type change how each claim is built and paid.
When a patient elects hospice
Once a patient elects hospice, services for the terminal illness fall under the hospice benefit. An independent attending physician bills Part B for professional care, and unrelated care is billed separately with its own modifier.
Settle who owns each patient's billing status
A palliative team often shares patients with oncologists, primary care, and a hospice. Billing has to know which hat each visit wears.
What the team keeps
Clinicians document visits and advance care planning time and approve codes before submission. The team also tracks which patients have elected hospice and who their attending is.
What Taiga takes on
Taiga's AI drafts ICD-10 and CPT codes from each visit note and your clinicians approve them. Its billing team then submits and scrubs claims, checks eligibility, works every denial and appeal, and sends patient statements.
Where a decision is needed
Hospice employment or contract arrangements, care in nursing facilities, and visits billed by a partner organization need a clear owner before claims move.
Questions for a palliative care fit call
Bring de-identified notes for an advance care planning visit, a home visit, and a visit for a patient on hospice. No patient details in the booking form, please.
Where do you see patients?
Break out clinic, home, hospital, and nursing facility visits, with rough volume for each.
How many patients are on hospice?
Estimate how often your clinicians act as independent attendings and whether any are employed by or contracted with a hospice.
How do you document time?
Show how your notes record advance care planning minutes separately from other management.
For palliative teams with mixed settings
Useful to an independent palliative care practice or team whose visits span clinics and homes, and whose claims keep stalling on hospice status questions.
No hospice or coverage rulings here
This page maps billing questions. It does not decide whether a service is related to a terminal illness, which modifier applies, or how a hospice contract should be structured.
Questions about palliative care billing
Can Taiga bill for our palliative care team?
Palliative care is not on Taiga's published specialty list. Bring your visit mix and settings, and Taiga will tell you straight whether it fits.
How much time does advance care planning need?
CPT 99497 covers the first 30 minutes and 99498 each additional 30 minutes, and CPT minimum time rules apply. CMS says to bill a regular E/M service instead when the discussion runs 15 minutes or less.
Can we bill advance care planning for a hospice patient?
Under Part B, only if the practitioner is not employed by the hospice. Hospice-employed or contracted physicians have those services billed on the hospice's institutional claim.
Is palliative care the same as the hospice benefit?
No. The hospice benefit requires a terminal prognosis and an election that waives standard Medicare coverage for that illness, while palliative care visits are billed as ordinary professional services.
Bring your palliative visit mix
Show Taiga where your team sees patients and how hospice status shifts your claims. Expect a plain answer on fit.
System guides show possible billing handoffs, not proven specialty compatibility.