Connect with Us

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.

Dr. Halow starts with a call he took on a day he was not on call, then does the math with conservative assumptions: 15 hours a week, 40 weeks a year and $150 an hour. His estimate comes to 600 hours and about $90,000 a year, before counting what each interruption does to the rest of the day.

He explains why the gap sits in the infrastructure. Phone calls, personal texts and consumer email leave no record, map to no billing code and have both physicians absorbing the time. Then he walks through what a secure, documented consult looks like, and how a documented consult can map to CPT codes 99446 to 99449 and 99451 to 99452 when payer requirements are met.

Full transcript and related reading: https://cliniciancore.com/podcasts/curbside-consult-invisible-tax-specialists/
Join the network: https://cliniciancore.com

Host: Dr. Kevin Halow, MD, MBA, FACS, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of ClinicianCore.

About the ClinicianCore Podcast

Hosted by Dr. Kevin Halow, the ClinicianCore Podcast explores unified clinical communication, physician burnout reduction, HIPAA-compliant collaboration, and the real impact of AI in healthcare.

New episodes are released every Monday at 1 PM EST.

If you’re a healthcare leader, physician, administrator, or innovator committed to improving clinical efficiency and restoring clarity to care delivery, this podcast is for you.

Follow or subscribe on your preferred platform so you never miss an episode.

Learn more about ClinicianCore and our mission to strengthen clinician collaboration at:
https://cliniciancore.com/

Connect with Dr. Kevin Halow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-halow-md/

Connect with Us

Referrals leave patients waiting for months while the referring physician loses sight of the case. In this episode, Dr. Kevin Halow explains how e-consults give physicians specialist input without a patient visit, and why both physicians can bill for that work.

In this episode:
• Why an e-consult (interprofessional consultation) is not telehealth, and why that distinction matters for billing
• CPT 99452 for the requesting physician (16 to 30 minutes of preparation)
• CPT 99451 for the consultant's written report (5 minutes or more), and how it differs from telephonic codes 99446 to 99449
• The 2025 CMS behavioral health codes G0546 to G0551 for psychologists, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, and mental health counselors
• Worked examples in dermatology and behavioral health
• The documentation auditors expect: patient consent, time for each clinician, a written assessment, and a permanent chart record

See how HCC Consult Core documents e-consults: https://cliniciancore.com/platform/hcc-consult-core/

About the ClinicianCore Podcast

Hosted by Dr. Kevin Halow, the ClinicianCore Podcast explores unified clinical communication, physician burnout reduction, HIPAA-compliant collaboration, and the real impact of AI in healthcare.

New episodes are released every Monday at 1 PM EST.

If you’re a healthcare leader, physician, administrator, or innovator committed to improving clinical efficiency and restoring clarity to care delivery, this podcast is for you.

Follow or subscribe on your preferred platform so you never miss an episode.

Learn more about ClinicianCore and our mission to strengthen clinician collaboration at:
https://cliniciancore.com/

Connect with Dr. Kevin Halow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-halow-md/

Connect with Us

Every knock on the exam room door costs more than the ten seconds it takes to answer it. On this episode of The Connected Practice, Dr. Kevin Halow breaks down why routine clinical interruptions, prescription questions, scheduling asks, quick clarifications, are quietly restructuring the physician workday and driving burnout.

Dr. Halow walks through what happens cognitively each time a physician is pulled out of a chart or a clinical decision, why that reset, not the interruption itself, is the real cost, and how it shows up later as after-hours charting. He also outlines a different way to structure clinic communication: separating front desk and phone duties, replacing verbal interruptions with a structured digital queue, and giving physicians a private space to consult with peers instead of working every decision alone.

If your practice is trying to reduce burnout, improve retention, or get physicians out of the kitchen-table charting habit, this episode is where to start.

About the ClinicianCore Podcast

Hosted by Dr. Kevin Halow, the ClinicianCore Podcast explores unified clinical communication, physician burnout reduction, HIPAA-compliant collaboration, and the real impact of AI in healthcare.

New episodes are released every Monday at 1 PM EST.

If you’re a healthcare leader, physician, administrator, or innovator committed to improving clinical efficiency and restoring clarity to care delivery, this podcast is for you.

Follow or subscribe on your preferred platform so you never miss an episode.

Learn more about ClinicianCore and our mission to strengthen clinician collaboration at:
https://cliniciancore.com/

Connect with Dr. Kevin Halow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-halow-md/