conducting sleep studies w/out fellowship training?

[psychfriend]

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I'm aware that it's extremely difficult and unlikely to attain a sleep fellowship as a psychiatrist due to the competition for the field from pulmonology and neurology. That being said, can you still conduct sleep studies on patients without the fellowship or official board certification? I'm aware you couldn't bill as sleep specialist but could you still bill for the procedure as a psychiatrist? Many adult-related sleep disorders are attributed to airway disfunction however many child-related sleep disorders are psychologically involved. As a psychiatrist, could you choose to conduct sleep studies on patients whose sleep disorders are attributed to psychologically related reasons?

 

[mgdsh]

From what I know as long as you have a medical license and a patient willing to see you for the procedure you can bill for it. You can go perform plastic surgery if you have a willing patient, and you're willing to do the procedure. You wouldn't be board certified in the specialty, but alas you can perform the procedure.

So yes, you could bill for sleep studies.

 

[psychfriend]

From what I know as long as you have a medical license and a patient willing to see you for the procedure you can bill for it. You can go perform plastic surgery if you have a willing patient, and you're willing to do the procedure. You wouldn't be board certified in the specialty, but alas you can perform the procedure.

So yes, you could bill for sleep studies.

I'm aware of the liability/potential litigation problems for those physicians who are not board certified in a field. However, I think the risks of a perfoming a sleep study on a selective number of patients is fairly low especially compared to a FP who performs plastic surgery. A psychiatrist could perform sleep studies on a selective number of patients. For example, they could avoid the obese/sleep apnea patient but could conduct one on a child who is exhibiting sleep disturbances.

I don't know enough about sleep medicine and the potential risks so I'm just making assumptions based on what "intuitively makes sense". There is probably far greater risk than I'm unaware of. It would be interesting to read some other's views on this. Thanks for the response

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I'm aware of the liability/potential litigation problems for those physicians who are not board certified in a field. However, I think the risks of a perfoming a sleep study on a selective number of patients is fairly low especially compared to a FP who performs plastic surgery. A psychiatrist could perform sleep studies on a selective number of patients. For example, they could avoid the obese/sleep apnea patient but could conduct one on a child who is exhibiting sleep disturbances.

I don't know enough about sleep medicine and the potential risks so I'm just making assumptions based on what "intuitively makes sense". There is probably far greater risk than I'm unaware of. It would be interesting to read some other's views on this. Thanks for the response

Are you also planning to set up your own sleep lab, buy the equipment, hire techs to run the studies at night...?

There's a lot that goes into this.

 

[psychfriend]

Are you also planning to set up your own sleep lab, buy the equipment, hire techs to run the studies at night...?

There's a lot that goes into this.

That's a good point, I imagine all of those costs would probably approach close to a million dollars. However, what if a group utilizes this and splits the cost?