Does anyone know how to bill Medicare or Medicaid for EFT work? I am a new EFT practitioner. I also work at a non-profit organization that helps disabled adults find & keep employment. All of our clients are on Medicare or Medicaid and MOST of them have major issues (depression, pain, etc) that are keeping them from being successful in holding consistent employment. Most of these issues/blocks could be cleared up quickly with EFT, which would also help us help THEM keep steady employment. It is a win/win for us AND our clients. They are no longer as disabled, and it helps us help them keep their job. Is there any way that we could bill EFT to Medicare/Medicaid? One option that may be possible would be to hire a licensed therapist who would SUPERVISE and then "sign off" on my work and we could then bill it as legitimate therapy under a code that Medicare/Medicaid pays for. Supervision and "signing off" is a VERY common practice in the field of Engineering and Architecture. Maybe it could apply here with EFT. I am new to EFT, so I am not sure how this works. I just want to help our disabled clients. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? If anyone knows how to do this, it would be an area for an UNLIMITED new stream of clients. The percentage of "Disabled Adults" in the USA is now about 8% or more. Thanks! Rich in San Antonio, Texas

Rich, I may be wrong but I believe you have to be a licensed health practitioner in some field that could incorporate the use of EFT--such as speech therapist, clinical social worker or psychologist etc-- to bill Medicare. I know as a non-medical person I cannot assign a diagnostic code number upon which medical billing statements seem to be based. I agree it would be incredibily useful for the disabled population, though I don't know how you would go about doing it. Perhaps someone else will have ideas.

Nancy: THANK YOU for your input! I am not familiar with Medicare/Medicaid and am right now trying to slog through their INCREDIBLY complicated website. I believe you are right in saying "you must be a clinically licensed practitioner who can bill Medicaid/Medicare". That is why I am throwing out the idea to the forum that a person could do the EFT work UNDER the supervision of a Licensed person for billing accepted by Medicare/Medicaid. In other words, an EFT person could do the actual therapy work, and the Licensed Psychologist, Therapist, Social Worker, etc, would then "sign off" on the work. I am an Engineer by training and this is done ALL THE TIME in Engineering, and has been done for YEARS. A "Professional Engineer" (P.E.) oversees and "signs off" on the work of a team of Engineers who actually do the designing. This "P.E." rating is one of the certifications that you hope to achieve in your career. At the same time, it is the Professional Engineer's license that is on the line in work that is "signed off" on. It is the P.E.'s final say and his/her responsibility for the quality of the work. *GARY CRAIG: if you read these forums, you might be able to provide some guidance here, as we are both Mechanical Engineers and are familiar with the P.E. concept. Gary - could I apply the "P.E. concept" to EFT and in billing Medicare/Medicaid to help our disabled clients. Their MENTAL disabilities are what is the MAIN cause in them losing their jobs that we find for them. Lord knows they could truly benefit from the help of EFT. If anyone knows Gary, please have him weigh in on this topic. Being able to bill Medicare/Medicaid would possibly REVOLUTIONIZE being able to help people on Disability, which I believe is about 8% of the USA population now. Thanks! Rich

*GARY CRAIG: if you read these forums, you might be able to provide some guidance here, as we are both Mechanical Engineers and are familiar with the "Professional Engineer/Supervision" concept. Gary - could we apply this "P.E. concept" to EFT and in billing Medicare/Medicaid to help our disabled clients? Their MENTAL disabilities are what is the MAIN cause in them losing their jobs that we find for them at our non-profit organization. Lord knows our clients could truly benefit from the help of EFT - we just can't figure out right now how to bill for it to cover our time & costs. IF ANYONE KNOWS GARY, please have him weigh in on this topic. Being able to bill Medicare/Medicaid would possibly REVOLUTIONIZE both EFT and being able to help people on Social Security Disability, which I believe is about 8% of the entire USA population now. Thanks! Rich

 Hi Rich,

Why don't you use the  population you work with to set up a pilot project?  Check out Carl Rogers and his detailed study that proved the effectiveness of Rogerian talk therapy. Once your pilot study shows results, you can get funding and  the participation of other EFT practitioners for a broader study.