Colleagues call on the days Dr. Halow is not on call, and he takes the call. About 30 minutes of expert judgment goes undocumented, so nothing is billed.
This is Dr. Halow's estimate: 15 hours a week, 40 weeks a year, $150 an hour. These are example assumptions, not survey data.
A family physician told Dr. Halow a mid-visit interruption throws her off for six to eight minutes. That friction can delay documentation and patient care.
Phone calls, personal texts and consumer email create no record and map to no billing code. Both physicians absorb the time.
A secure, structured exchange records the review time. It can map to CPT codes 99446 to 99449 and 99451 to 99452 when payer requirements are met.
A curbside consult takes about 30 minutes, leaves no record and never reaches a billing system. In this episode of The Connected Practice, Dr. Kevin Halow, MD, MBA, FACS, adds up what those unscheduled calls cost independent specialists each year. Using his own conservative assumptions, he estimates about 600 unbilled hours and $90,000 a year, then counts what each interruption costs. He explains why phone calls and personal texts leave no record, and walks through how a secure, documented consult works and can map to CPT codes 99446 to 99449 and 99451 to 99452 when payer requirements are met.
