Stephen M. Levine, PT, DPT, MSHA

Stephen M. Levine, PT, DPT, MSHA
Partner, Fearon & Levine

Stephen M. Levine is a partner in Fearon & Levine, a national consulting firm focusing on practice management and payment policy in the outpatient rehabilitation setting, with particular expertise in the areas of documentation, coding, billing, and compliance. Fearon & Levine has a client base in over 35 states and the District of Columbia, and he and his partner, Helene Fearon, PT, have taught seminars and lectured in more than 46 states. He is a development partner in OptimisPT®, a revolutionary end-to-end electronic health record platform designed, initially, for the outpatient physical therapy industry, that incorporates software guided clinical decision support protocols, automated documentation of therapist-patient interactions, evidence-based practice guidelines, and documentation, billing, and regulatory compliance in an efficient web-based platform. Prior to development of Fearon & Levine, he was involved in operation and ownership of a private practice in Maryland for over eighteen years. He received his degree in Physical Therapy from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, a Masters Degree in Health Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University, and his Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from A.T Still University of the Health Sciences.

Dr. Levine is a nationally recognized expert in the physical therapy profession, and consultant to physical therapy providers, as well as local and national third party payers, regulators, and case management agencies in the areas of CPT coding and relative values, RBRVS, cost containment, fraud and abuse, quality assurance issues, payment/reimbursement strategies for physical therapy services, electronic health records, and physical therapy documentation, utilization review, and medical necessity. He is a certified peer reviewer, and has provided education and training to both providers and payers at the local and national level for over 20 years. He has written numerous articles in his areas of expertise, and contributed to two book chapters in the areas of medical necessity, payment policy, Medicare regulations, and computerized documentation. Additionally, Dr. Levine has worked extensively with federal investigative and law enforcement agencies, including the Office of the Inspector General, Department of Justice, and Federal Bureau of Investigation in the areas of fraud, abuse, medical necessity, over-utilization, and medical policy review.

From 1992 to 1999, Dr. Levine was the national APTA appointee to the American Medical Association’s Health Care Professional’s Advisory Committee of the Relative Value Update Committee (RUC), a multi-specialty committee which advises the AMA and CMS on appropriate relative values of medical services provided by a broad range of licensed providers. He accepted reappointment to this panel again in 2009, and currently represents APTA on the RUC HCPAC, and is the only non-physician appointed by the American Medical Association to the Five-Year Review Identification Workgroup, whose responsibility includes identification of services that are potentially over or undervalued under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. He is considered one of the foremost experts on development, implementation, and current applications of the Resource Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) and its application to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and other third party payers, and is a frequent advisor to the Medicare program. Additionally, he has testified before the Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Health, of the United States Congress on the subject of RBRVS and federal payment policy under the Medicare program.

Dr. Levine has been an active member of the American Physical Therapy Association for 25 years, having served many positions at the state and national level. Nationally, he was Vice-Speaker of the House and a member of the APTA Board of Directors from 1997 – 2002, following which he served as an APTA Board member and Speaker of the House of Delegates from 2003 - 2008. Additionally, Dr. Levine has served as adjunct faculty in multiple physical therapy professional and post-professional educational programs across the country, currently including the post-professional doctoral programs at Nova Southeastern University and the University of Montana, where he teaches in the areas of health care administration, practice management, coding, documentation, compliance, and payment policy.

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