When documenting E/M services, it is important to make sure that face-to-face time spent counseling a patient or coordinating care exceeds the total service time when providers are also including floor time in the hospital toward the E/M visit. An E/M code can be chosen based on the total service time when the time spent counseling a patient or coordinating care is more than fifty percent.
Floor time is defined by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) as time spent by the physician on the patient’s hospital floor or the unit that is associated with that specific patient. In addition, any time counted must be spent exclusively on the care of that patient, not any other patient.