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Balancing population-based efforts to modify the social and environmental factors that promote tobacco dependence with efforts to improve the delivery of case-based treatments is necessary for realizing maximum reductions in the cost and consequences of the disease. Public health antismoking campaigns following the 1964 Surgeon General's report on the health risks of smoking have changed social norms, prevented initiation among youth, and promoted abstinence among the addicted. However, the rate of progress enjoyed to date is unlikely to continue into the coming decades, given that current annual unassisted cessation rates among prevalent smokers remains fairly low. With more than 1 billion patient interactions annually, there is an enormous unrealized capacity for health-care systems to have an effect on this problem. Clinicians report a perceived lack of reimbursement as a significant barrier to full integration of tobacco dependence into health care. A more complete understanding of the coding and documentation requirements for successful practice in this critically important area is a prerequisite to increasing engagement. This paper presents several case-based scenarios illustrating important practice management issues related to the treatment of tobacco dependence in health care.CHEST 2016; 149(2):568-575KEY WORDS: addiction; reimbursement; smoking; tobacco Given that tobacco smoking remains responsible for a major portion of preventable death and disability, who, if not health-care providers, should be responsible for preventing that portion of preventable death and disability?Tobacco control is clearly one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, preventing millions of smokingrelated deaths. 1,2 Consequently, the current "end-game" strategy relies heavily on extending gains made by policy initiatives and environmental modifications. [3][4][5][6] Relative to the emphasis placed on population-based controls, efforts to increase the ability of health-care systems to provide effective case ABBREVIATIONS: CPT = current procedural terminology; E/M = evaluation and management; ICD-9-CM = International Classification of Diseases, Clinical Modification 9