The U.S. healthcare industry has a $1 trillion opportunity to cut costs and reduce waste, according to a 2015 Harvard Business Review analysis. While there are various areas waste accumulates, costly data reconciliation is a prominent problem for hospitals and health systems. Change Healthcare defines data reconciliation as “the process of compiling information across companies […]
America’s Health Insurance Plans called on Congress to set a fixed reimbursement rate based on what insurers pay in a region. Providers are pushing back against an insurer proposal for legislation to set reimbursement rates to avoid surprise medical bills. In a letter to Senate and House leaders this week, America’s Health Insurance Plans and 16 other […]
The new codes include drugs for migraines, to initiate blood-clotting in patients on certain coagulants, chronic and hairy cell leukemia, and folic acid for chemotherapy patients. The home health codes help facilitate the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Pioneer ACO initiative. New HCPCS Level II Codes […]
In October 2015, physicians across the United States transitioned from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Ninth Revision to the tenth revision (ICD-10-CM, the US version of the World Health Organization [WHO] ICD-10). Although the ICD-10-CM was a new concept for physicians in the United States, the international variant has been available since […]
Value based payment models are undoubtedly the future of health care. The number of commercial and governmental ACO contracts alone increased by an average of 63% annually from Q1 2011 to Q1 2018, according to a Muhlestein et al. analysis of Leavitt Partners’ data. Though commercial payers have been slower to adopt other models that […]
Preview of CPT® Code Changes for 2020 and 2021 The CPT® Editorial Panel’s February 2019 meeting introduced several key updates set to take effect in CPT 2020 and 2021, including significant revisions, deletions, and additions across multiple specialties. Major Changes for CPT 2021 The most notable update is the revision of office and outpatient E/M […]
Most industries embrace the motto “the customer is king.” They are acutely aware their success is driven by it. While the complexity of the healthcare business model has made it challenging for provider organizations to adopt such an ethos, the recent rise of consumerism in the industry necessitates that providers prioritize the patient experience if […]
The CPT® codes that are considered a laboratory test under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) change each year, as well as throughout the year, making it difficult for healthcare providers and laboratories to keep up. Here are the CPT codes for 2019 that are subject to or excluded from CLIA edits in easy-to-look up […]
The importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medical Coding is often understated and also overstating the same is quite difficult.. to get in-depth with how AI is actually bringing changes in MCA, we must get to the basics of what Medical Billing and Coding really are. Medical Coding Medical coding, if we talk about it […]
Every business not only wants to attract new customers but to keep its existing ones, and hospitals and health systems are no different. Unfortunately, surprise medical bills can be the element that drives patients away from one hospital and into the waiting arms of the competition. New research published this month in Health Affairs provides hospitals with […]