Trends in psychiatric billing patterns by beneficiary characteristics

This study describes the policy change in Medicare outpatient psychiatric services and its impact on volume and allowed charges from the period of 1987 to 1990, and reviews the trends for services billed by psychiatric providers by beneficiary age, gender, race, and location. Across all the beneficiary characteristics, the study found that in terms of psychiatric services, diagnostic procedures were growing at a faster rate than therapeutic services. More importantly, the findings show that Medicare patients over 85 years of age had the highest volume growth rate for all psychiatric services.