Are family doctors allowed to perform ECGs?

[vancoremed]

I was wondering if family doctors are allowed to perform ECGs within their office. Would they need a fellowship to be able to do so?

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[baileyfal]

Yes.

 

[Slevin]

I was wondering if family doctors are allowed to perform ECGs within their office. Would they need a fellowship to be able to do so?

What fellowship are you talking about that’s dedicated to reading ECG’s?

 

[vancoremed]

Yes.

Interesting do they need to take an exam or course to show they are proficient in performing and interpreting ECGs?

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Is this a joke?

 

[Reboa]

What’s the context of this question? Why’re you asking this? Otherwise this comes off like a troll post

 

[deleted87716]

Interesting do they need to take an exam or course to show they are proficient in performing and interpreting ECGs?

Yes. It’s called med school and residency.

 

[TableMD]

If you do the EKG fellowship, 3 months of that will count towards the two year fellowship in Prostate Exam Studies. I nearly failed the lab practical for that one when I missed the nuance of the prostate fluid wave.

 

[baileyfal]

Interesting do they need to take an exam or course to show they are proficient in performing and interpreting ECGs?

Yes. The American Board of Family Physician’s requires you to pass a board exam after residency training to demonstrate competency in reading ECGs amongst other things.

 

[galactus]

Also. USMLE Step tests you on ECG's as well. What kind of question is this lol.

 

[B1GM0N3Y86]

Yes, we are able to do EKGs.

 

[SLC]

As a serious reply, I’ll give you a real world example of how this is handled at my employed practice.

I can order, perform, interpret ECG’s all day just because I’m a licensed physician. No extra certification required. And I do.

if you determine ECG is needed, and you formally document your interpretation in the note, that’s enough on its own to make a visit for say, chest discomfort or palpitation, into a 99214 office visit code.

however, at my institution, all ECG’s come with the computer interpretation, and are subsequently overread by cardiology later in the day. I’ll get some inbox result that I have to review and eliminate from my inbox, it’s obnoxious. The cardiologists get some small RVU benefit to sit and read them after hours. My patients are billed for that, even though I’ve already read the tracing and informed them of the result and made clinical decisions about it.

so I looked into how I could prevent that from happening and all I need to do is take a test that’s administered by by the hospital. If I pass it, then I can be the one who “overreads” the ECG. Patient still gets a bill, like $20, but it comes to me instead of some peripherally involved cardiologist who’s never even seen my patients and so then there’s no unnecessary 3rd person participating in the patient’s care.

So no, you don’t need a fellowship or special training to read ECG’s and make clinical decisions about them. It’s a core competency that you should graduate med-school with the ability to do. But if you’re employed, chances are some cardiologist is going to be getting paid to “overread” The computer interpretation, and tell you what you already knew and acted on.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

As a serious reply, I’ll give you a real world example of how this is handled at my employed practice.

I can order, perform, interpret ECG’s all day just because I’m a licensed physician. No extra certification required. And I do.

if you determine ECG is needed, and you formally document your interpretation in the note, that’s enough on its own to make a visit for say, chest discomfort or palpitation, into a 99214 office visit code.

however, at my institution, all ECG’s come with the computer interpretation, and are subsequently overread by cardiology later in the day. I’ll get some inbox result that I have to review and eliminate from my inbox, it’s obnoxious. The cardiologists get some small RVU benefit to sit and read them after hours. My patients are billed for that, even though I’ve already read the tracing and informed them of the result and made clinical decisions about it.

so I looked into how I could prevent that from happening and all I need to do is take a test that’s administered by by the hospital. If I pass it, then I can be the one who “overreads” the ECG. Patient still gets a bill, like $20, but it comes to me instead of some peripherally involved cardiologist who’s never even seen my patients and so then there’s no unnecessary 3rd person participating in the patient’s care.

So no, you don’t need a fellowship or special training to read ECG’s and make clinical decisions about them. It’s a core competency that you should graduate med-school with the ability to do. But if you’re employed, chances are some cardiologist is going to be getting paid to “overread” The computer interpretation, and tell you what you already knew and acted on.

Depending on the way your system is set up, it might not be worth it.

Interpreting an ECG is only worth 0.17 wRVUs. For us, interpreting the ECG requires putting the interpretation into Epic which even if completely normal takes around 5 minutes start to finish. 3 of those then takes up 1 exam spot which is worth at minimum 1 wRVU compared to .52 for the ECGs.

 

[SLC]

Depending on the way your system is set up, it might not be worth it.

Interpreting an ECG is only worth 0.17 wRVUs. For us, interpreting the ECG requires putting the interpretation into Epic which even if completely normal takes around 5 minutes start to finish. 3 of those then takes up 1 exam spot which is worth at minimum 1 wRVU compared to .52 for the ECGs.

Yeah, I haven’t turned in my test yet for that reason. I don’t imagine it will be worth it financially. But philosophically I just have a problem with some cardiologist somewhere in our system getting paid simply because I determined an ECG was necessary. I could do them after hours or on weekends if I really wanted to. It doesn’t need to be done in real-time.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Yeah, I haven’t turned in my test yet for that reason. I don’t imagine it will be worth it financially. But philosophically I just have a problem with some cardiologist somewhere in our system getting paid simply because I determined an ECG was necessary. I could do them after hours or on weekends if I really wanted to. It doesn’t need to be done in real-time.

Sure, and philosophically if its worth it to you then do it.

I'd rather lose the liability and the slightly less than $8 that reading the ECG gets me.

 

[SLC]

Sure, and philosophically if its worth it to you then do it.

I'd rather lose the liability and the slightly less than $8 that reading the ECG gets me.

True, still, if I’m making clinical decisions in real time, and documenting my own read in the chart note, I’m not really taking on any extra liability by giving an “official” read in the ECG reading program.

plus, in 2 years and probably 150 ECG’s, I’ve not had a cards read come back different from my own so...