With an election year just about upon us, there are a number of changes coming from the current administration that are going to impact healthcare in 2020. Changes in allowable benefits, home health, hospice carve-ins, and new CPT codes for remote home monitoring are just a sample of these. There are an additional set of fundamental […]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has taken steps to overhaul codes used for Evaluation and Management (EM) office visit codes. The initiative aims to reduce documentation burdens that interfere with patient care, the American Medical Association says. The professional organization for the nation’s physicians is providing a series of educational materials to support […]
Q: There seems to be a trend of practices using a variety of staff as ‘educators’ to provide patient education. The more recent ‘twist’ is the billing of E&M codes for non-physician providers, based in either clinical documentation or time-based, under the ‘incident to” provision – even though the physician does not see the patient for these […]
The coding of medical diagnosis and treatment has always been a challenging issue. Translating a patient’s complex symptoms, and a clinician’s efforts to address them, into a clear and unambiguous classification code was difficult even in simpler times. Now, however, hospitals and health insurance companies want very detailed information on what was wrong with a […]
Consideration of several factors, such as the type of removal, lesion size and location, pathologic results, intent, etc., is key to accurately coding dermatological lesion removal procedures. Let’s review the codes and guidelines for lesion removal by excision and how to avoid common mistakes when coding these skin procedures. Excision – Benign/Malignant Lesions (11400-11646) Excision […]
Hospital billing departments coordinate health plan benefits every day. Typically, coordination of benefits (COB) is aided by patient registration workflows that gather basic demographic and health insurance information. But what if a patient gets hurt on the job or in an automobile accident? How well does your organization collect the information needed to coordinate […]
HBI data reveals that the rate of hospitals or health systems that have implemented artificial intelligence for any revenue cycle function has not widely increased over the past year, but automation in healthcare has shown some forward movement in comparison. Based on the conversations revenue cycle analysts have conducted with HBI members over the past […]
The technology, growing in popularity, is one way to reduce errors and enhance communication. Speeding up and simplifying the communication between provider and payer means a lot more than just getting reimbursed. It can help healthcare organizations be more transparent about costs to patients. It can maximize the amount of time skilled workers deal with […]
Q: Some of our Medicare patient’s complain about their $20 or so co-pay when we bill ‘Combination visits’, a G0439 Annual Wellness visit codes(AWV) and another Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code for managing their problems during the same visit. Is there a good solution to this issue or any advice to maybe remedy this? A: This […]
The American Medical Association issued a checklist for the transition to fundamental changes in evaluation and management (E/M) services, a medical coding process in support of medical billing which practicing healthcare providers must use to be reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid programs or private insurance. The checklist provides a guide for physician practices, which already are […]