September 16, 2025 — Abbreviated, 15- to 30-minute medication visits have become common in psychiatry now that many insurers model their reimbursement patterns on internal medicine and surgery . To support practicing psychiatrists, a series of four columns in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice ®, part of the Lippincott portfolio from Wolters Kluwer , describe how to feasibly combine brief psychotherapy with longitudinal pharmacotherapy. The final installment appears in the September issue.
The authors are psychiatrists Samuel Dotson, MD, of Northeast Georgia Health System in Gainesville, GA and Emory University in Atlanta; John C. Markowitz, MD, of New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University in New York, NY; David Mintz, MD, of Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA; and Michael E. Thase, MD, of Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The rationales for short-form combination therapy
“Since 2013, the American Medical Association has provided a Current Procedural Terminology therapy add-on code 90833 for billing encounters lasting between 16 and 37 minutes,” Eric M. Platkun, MD, the journal’s Psychotherapy Section Editor, notes in an introduction to the series. “Use of this code can often double the number of Relative Value Units for a visit, providing a strong financial incentive for its adoption.”
Abbreviated therapy can also expand access for patients who lack the resources or time for traditional psychotherapy, Dr. Dotson and his colleagues point out. Furthermore, incorporating psychotherapy into medication visits can improve the job satisfaction of psychiatrists who may otherwise feel reduced to the role of “just the prescriber.”
Practical approaches to success
The authors devote a full article to each of three psychotherapies: supportive, psychodynamic, and cognitive-behavioral. Using case studies, they discuss techniques for building elements of these therapies into brief medication visits. Many tips apply to all three psychotherapies:
The authors note that prescribers offering psychodynamic therapy should take care to avoid creating a competing psychotherapy if the patient is consulting a separate psychotherapist. “It is then prudent to restrict psychodynamic activity to supporting the patient’s healthy use of pharmacotherapy.”
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Harvard Review of Psychiatry
The 16-minute Hour: Combining Abbreviated Psychotherapy With Medication Visits. Part 4: Cognitive-behavioral Therapy
16-Sep-2025