Medication follow-up appointment costs
My 12yo daughter recently started lexapro. Due to her age, her pediatrician requires in person follow-up appointments every 3 months. These cannot be combined with any other visits (we had to make her annual wellness visit for the following day 🙄).
We have only had one follow up visit so far, but it felt unnecessarily long for what the purpose was. Her pediatrician did full vitals including reflex testing. I was really shocked when I saw how this visit was coded (30-39 mins, medical decision making, moderate complexity). If we go every 3 months, this is almost $1000 a year in follow-up visits. Is this standard and just par for the course?
I called her pediatrician’s office to ask if these could be shortened to 15 minute visits since we’ll be going so frequently. They honestly made me feel like a really shitty mom just for asking. I’m not trying to compromise her care, I just had not anticipated such a high cost in appointments.