E/M Weekly Tip: Chief Complaint

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A chief complaint (CC) is a concise statement describing the symptom, problem, condition, diagnosis, physician recommended return or other factor that is the reason for the patient encounter. A CC is required for all levels of service. The extent of the information gathered for the CC and history component is dependent upon clinical judgment and the nature of the presenting problem. The documentation must clearly reflect the CC.

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AMA Disclaimer of Warranties and Liabilities.
This product includes CPT which is commercial technical data and/or computer data bases and/or commercial computer software and/or commercial computer software documentation, as applicable which were developed exclusively at private expense by the American Medical Association, AMA Plaza, 330 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 39300, Chicago, IL 60611-5885. U.S. Government rights to use, modify, reproduce, release, perform, display, or disclose these technical data and/or computer data bases and/or computer software and/or computer software documentation are subject to the limited rights restrictions of FAR 52.227-14 (December 2007) and/or subject to the restricted rights provisions of FAR 52.227-14 (December 2007) and FAR 52.227-19 (December 2007), as applicable, and any applicable agency FAR Supplements, for non-Department of Defense Federal procurements.

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    1. Subject to the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement, you, your employees and agents are authorized to use CDT only as contained in the following authorized materials and solely for internal use by yourself, employees and agents within your organization within the United States and its territories. Use of CDT is limited to use in programs administered by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). You agree to take all necessary steps to ensure that your employees and agents abide by the terms of this agreement. You acknowledge that the ADA holds all copyright, trademark and other rights in CDT. You shall not remove, alter, or obscure any ADA copyright notices or other proprietary rights notices included in the materials.
    2. Any use not authorized herein is prohibited, including by way of illustration and not by way of limitation, making copies of CDT for resale and/or license, transferring copies of CDT to any party not bound by this agreement, creating any modified or derivative work of CDT, or making any commercial use of CDT. License to use CDT for any use not authorized herein must be obtained through the American Dental Association, 211 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611. Applications are available at the American Dental Association web site, https://www.ada.org.
    3. Applicable Federal Acquisition Regulation Clauses (FARS)/Department of Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation supplement (DFARS) Restrictions Apply to Government Use. Please click here to see all U.S. Government Rights Provisions.
    4. Organizations who contract with CMS acknowledge that they may have a commercial CDT license with the ADA, and that use of CDT codes as permitted herein for the administration of CMS programs does not extend to any other programs or services the organization may administer and royalties dues for the use of the CDT codes are governed by their commercial license.
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