Counting Nurse Practitioner

[Cheryl Walker]

I have a question about counting a nurse specialist as a physician visit. Here is the scenario of her qualifications. She is a "Clinical Nurse Specialist" who works with the Psychiatrist that comes to visit our facility.She is able to write orders for him and she sees the residents first to obtain the baseline history fromthe chart. She tells us she has had all the training that a RNP has had but since her specialty is psychiatry they do not issue distinction of NP but CNS. My question is this- can I count her as a physician visit? I have not been- I have coded her visits under P1e but I have another RNAC in our facility who has included her in physician visits. I am in PA and could not find any clarification or reference to this situation in their guidelines. Any help from out there would be greatly appreciated. Cheryl