What a POCUS Program Consultation Covers
Budget and leadership buy-in
What does a POCUS program cost, and how do you make the case for it to the people holding the purse strings? I'll build a detailed budget proposal covering equipment, software, training, and ongoing costs. If needed, I'll help present it to hospital or health system leadership. Some administrators aren't familiar with what POCUS does clinically or financially, so part of this work is translating the value into terms that land in a budget conversation, drawing on medical society statements and published clinical policies.
Provider education
Clinicians need training specific to their specialty and patient population, not a generic POCUS overview. I design and deliver hands-on courses covering the exams most relevant to your clinical setting, built around the machines your providers will actually use. These can be structured as a single full-day session, a multi-day course, or an ongoing curriculum depending on the size of your group and the scope of POCUS you want to implement.
Credentialing
Performing and billing POCUS requires institutional privileging, and most hospitals don't have a POCUS-specific credentialing policy in place. I'll develop one tailored to your specialty requirements and institutional structure, covering how providers demonstrate initial competency and maintain it over time. I can also review exams remotely to help providers meet their procedural log numbers during the credentialing process.
Equipment
The ultrasound machine market is crowded and the marketing is aggressive. I'll evaluate what you currently have, assess whether it fits your clinical use case, and make specific recommendations on cart-based machines, handheld devices, and accessories. The evaluation covers image quality for the exams you need, ease of use, durability, portability, probe options, and the service responsiveness of the vendors under consideration.
Workflow
A POCUS program that's cumbersome to use doesn't get used. The workflow covers how exams are ordered, performed, stored, documented, and coded. Any step that creates friction will cost you provider buy-in. I'll assess your current process end to end and design a workflow that's efficient and meets reimbursement requirements, including evaluating and recommending archiving and documentation software where needed.
Image archiving and EMR integration
POCUS images need to get from the probe to the patient chart reliably. I'll evaluate your current setup, recommend archiving software if needed, and work directly with your IT team, biomedical engineering staff, and EMR vendor to build the integration. If your EMR can't support direct POCUS integration, I'll work on an alternative solution.
Documentation
Good POCUS documentation supports reimbursement and communicates findings to the rest of the care team. I'll review your current documentation practices and provide structured report templates for every exam type your providers perform. These templates are built to fit your EMR's documentation tools and include the elements required by current CPT coding guidelines. I'll also suggest approaches that reduce the documentation burden on providers without cutting what's required.
Billing, coding, and reimbursement
POCUS is reimbursable, but only when documentation, image archiving, and coding are all done correctly. The AMA's 2023 coding changes affected E/M documentation requirements but left procedural billing, including POCUS, largely unchanged. Reimbursement still requires structured procedure notes and saved representative images. I'll review your current billing practices, identify where reimbursement is being missed, and build a billing workflow if one doesn't exist, including working with your coding team on POCUS-specific CPT codes and required modifiers.
Quality assurance
A QA program protects both patients and providers. I'll build or review your QA policy, which typically involves periodic remote review of a sample of credentialed providers' exams to confirm accurate interpretation and image quality. The policy also covers infection control protocols, probe handling and storage, and safety procedures specific to your setting. For programs that need it, Peachtree POCUS can provide ongoing QA image review after the initial consultation.
Vendor and personnel coordination
Getting a POCUS program running requires a lot of conversations with people who aren't POCUS experts: IT staff, biomedical engineering, EMR representatives, archiving software vendors, and coders. I'll serve as the point of contact for those conversations so your clinical staff doesn't have to become technical experts. My experience building and running programs means I know what questions to ask, what to push back on, and how to keep things moving when multiple vendors are involved.