Archive for the Week of August 12, 2005
Archive for the Week of August 12, 2005
Welcome to the medical billing blog archive for the week of August 12, 2005.
Here you will find links to every article added to the Outsource Management Group web site during the week of August 12, 2005.
You can browse this week's archives by clicking the "More" button from any of the excerpts below.
Outsourcing Your Medicare Medical Billing Claims
Outsourcing Your Medicare Medical Billing Claims In order to participate in Medicare, health care providers must:*Agree to file claims to Medicare on behalf of the patient.*Accept the allowed or approved amount of the claim as payment in full.*Write off any amount not paid by Medicare.*Make an attempt to collect the co-pay amount from the patient.*Accept assignment on all claims. If you are a physician that accepts Medicare patients, you are familiar with the billing and re-imbursement process and you know from filing CMS-1500 forms that it can take weeks for a claim that was manually filed to be handled and reimbursed by Medicare. Outsourcing your medical billing to a vendor …
The Business of Medical Billing For Psychiatric Claims
The Business of Medical Billing For Psychiatric Claims Psychiatric medical billing can be confusing for a lot of people, and many times improperly coded medical billing claims will result in the medial billing getting kicked back. Some standard billing codes for the Psychiatric industry are as follows: The “Initial Psych Eval” causes a lot of confusion. Normally the 45 – 60 minute initial evaluation is billed under CPT code 90801 (whether it is a psychiatrist, psychologist or therapist). Psychiatric testing is another coding nightmare for a lot of people, normally it is billed under CPT code 96100 (regardless of the “type” of test – the CPT code is always the …
What Is ICD-9-CM Coding System?
What Is ICD-9-CM Coding System? It almost sounds like the title to an Ed Wood film, but ICD-9 is actually a very efficient system of coding developed in a collaborative effort between the World Health Organization (WHO) and ten international medical centers, including one in the United States in an effort to streamline reporting of medical procedures. The purpose of this coding system is to promote international compatibility in the collection, classification, processing and presentation of health related statistics. In the United States, this coding system takes on another purpose as the HIPAA-mandated coding system used in medical billing. ICD-9 Clinical Modification (CM) is the system currently used in the …
HIPAA Compliance and Outsourcing Your Medical Billing
HIPAA Compliance and Outsourcing Your Medical Billing The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) has had a major impact on health care providers who do business electronically as well as many of their health care business partners. Many changes involve complex computer system modifications. HIPAA compliance requirements have been standardized into 4 main aspects. 1) Electronic transactions and code sets2) Security;3) Unique identifiers; and4) Privacy HIPAA does not require a health care provider to conduct all transactions and medical billing electronically. Rather, if you are going to conduct any one of these business transactions electronically they will need to be done in thestandard secure format outlined under …
Clearinghouse vs. Direct to Carrier Medical Billing Submissions
Clearinghouse vs. Direct to Carrier Medical Billing Submissions When considering which to submit to, there is some pause for thought. Most practices submit paper claims direct to the Carrier as they always have. This is not a very cost effective way to handle claims unless you only submit one claim to one carrier,which isn’t likely. You have a thriving practice with a lot of patients and therefore have a lot of claims with many different carriers. With a clearinghouse, you need only contact one location and submit all your claims for routing and processing. Most medical billing firms use the clearing house method.Furthermore, more carriers don’t allow editing of claims …
