Table 1.

Characteristics of Medicare Beneficiaries Receiving BHI Services

Total unique beneficiaries receiving BHI (2017 and 2018)	711
Beneficiaries with behavioral health diagnosis in 2017 or 2018	815,110
By beneficiary:
Average number of BHI visit-months per beneficiary	2.7 (SD 2.8)
Number of BHI visit-months per beneficiary
1	347 (48.8%)
2	127 (17.9%)
3	72 (10.1%)
4	54 (7.6%)
5+	111 (15.6%)
By BHI visit:
Total number of BHI visit-months, by code type	1927
G0502/CPT 99492	222 (11.5%)
G0503/CPT 99493	263 (13.6%)
G0507/CPT 99484	1442 (74.8%)
Primary Dx associated with use of BHI service code
Mood disorders	750 (38.9%)
Neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders	344 (17.9%)
Mental disorders, unspecified	221 (11.5%)
Dementia, delirium, or other mental disorders due to known physiological condition	127 (6.6%)
Schizophrenia, schizotypal, and delusional disorders	94 (4.9%)
Other behavioral health diagnosis	80 (4.2%)
Other diagnosis, non-behavioral health	310 (16.1%)
By Provider:
Number of unique providers billing for BHI services	344
Internal medicine	95 (27.6%)
Family practice	83 (24.1%)
Nurse practitioner	72 (20.9%)
Physician’s assistant	19 (5.5%)
Psychiatrist	24 (7.0%)
Social worker	14 (4.1%)
Other	37 (10.8%)

Data are from the 2017 5% Medicare Fee-for-Service annual sample, and Quarters 1–4 of the 2018 5% Medicare Fee-for-Service quarterly samples. Approximately 13% of beneficiary-months had multiple BHI codes billed. Per CMS billing guidelines, we retained only one reimbursed BHI service code per beneficiary per month in final sample (i.e., duplicates removed; when multiple different codes present, we retained the highest-intensity billing code that was accepted for reimbursement)