Medical Billing Blog: Section - General Info
Archive of all Articles in the General Info Section
This is the archive containing links to all articles written in the General Info section of our blog.
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Correctly Using POS Codes in Your Medical Billing
More and more carriers are cracking down on medical billing claims that have a lack of or incorrect place of service code. Even with the correct current procedural terminology code for E/M services, a medical billing claim that does not have a correct POS code will get your claim denied. It is a common occurrence in medical billing for the place of service codes to be misused or left out. There are several current procedural terminology codes for an evaluation and management session that correspond to different medical billing place of service codes. When using CPT 99341 (Home visit for the evaluation and management of a new patient) through 99350 …
Magical Modifier 25
Modifier 25 is a medical billing code used to indicate extra work for a medical service or procedure. There are three simple steps you can use to learn how to correctly use the medical billing modifier 25. The first medical billing step to correctly use modifier 25 is to only report the most significant services provided during the visit. When reporting an Evaluation and Management exam, it is very difficult to perform a service that is separately billable. Most things are covered under the evaluation and management, including injections and tests. In order to correctly append the medical billing modifier to a procedure, it must be very significant. The next …
Proper Usage of Code 58679
Even with the reams of information and thousands of codes, there are many procedures in which there is no particular medical billing code to represent it. For instance, an Oophoropexy is usually performed for radiation therapy, but what if it were part of a treatment for polycentric ovarian syndrome? In the oophoropexy example above, some medical billing staff members may use the current procedural terminology code 58825 (Transposition, ovary). Unfortunately, they would be incorrect and would receive most likely a very reduced reimbursement or an outright denial of the medical billing claim. The definition of transposition is when an ovary is moved due to radiation therapy. Since radiation therapy is …
Thinking about a Career in Medical Billing?
Doctors are very busy these days treating patients in their offices, attending to surgeries, making their hospital rounds and answering important phone calls. They simply do not have the time to attend to the financial aspects of running a medical practice. Aside from nurses, receptionists, physician’s assistants and technicians every well-trained staff has at its core key people specifically designated to medical coding and billing. It shouldn’t be a surprise that there is an explosion of career opportunities in medical coding and billing. Estimates chart the growth of medical billing and coding careers at over 65% within the year 2005. This surging demand for specialists in this area accounts for …
If You’re Considering Hiring a Medical Billing Consultant
Physicians who need help managing billing in their offices may want to consider a company that specializes in medical billing consulting. Medical billing services help doctors get paid from insurance companies. But medical billing consultants often go a step further, and help doctors manage all their finances, from billing, to accounts receivable, to collections. Some medical billing consulting services work on-site as part of the practice management team. Others work off-site and only come into the office as needed to analyze what needs to be done. Many help to train employees to better handle billing, coding and reimbursement issues. They may also help to analyze workflow in doctors’ offices, to …
Medical Billing a Healthy Part of Modern Medicine
Medical billing is the practical management aspect of medicine and the way the healthcare provider gets paid. Without a good medical billing and coding foundation to base the billing of a practice on, the practice will cease to exist from lack of revenue. In legalese, the “face-to-face contact between healthcare professional and an eligible beneficiary” is known as “an encounter.” For every such “encounter,” there is a specific code. These codes exist for the sole purpose of identifying for the payer what they are paying for. The services rendered codes (CPT) must match the diagnosis code (ICD) for the payment to be deemed necessary and just. CPT medical coding books …
Reasons to Outsource Your Medical Billing
In a busy practice, the attending physicians have no time to compile their own medical billing. Keeping up the with lightening fast coding changes is hard enough without keeping up with the necessary documentation, making judgment calls on complex issues and then coding and compiling a superbill for each and every patient seen. This sounds overwhelming and time consuming and in the early days of many a practice, many physicians did do their own medical billing. Good practices grow and soon the doctor had hired someone to take care of paperwork and submission of all their medical billing claims. This person is usually called a PA or physician assistants. It …
Keep Your Medical Billing Records Accurate
The life’s blood of any practice is the reimbursement revenue from the medical billing forms. Practitioners rely on accurate medical billing and coding to get their claims paid and not denied. Before a patient appointment, medical billers should remember to: Remind patients to bring all pertinent documentsCopy insurance and ID cards before appointmentsGather accurate patient informationObtain signature on assignment of benefits and HIPAA formsCollect co-pay After a patient appointment, healthcare providers should make sure that a detailed record has been kept of the patient encounter. Include such information as complaints, diagnoses, treatments provided, procedures recommended, or follow-up necessary. Furthermore, all of this information should be entered on the charge sheet …
Medical Billing and the Test of Good Coding
Medical billing professionals have many tasks beyond medical billing, including medical billing database management, spreadsheets and basic accounting to name a few. What has become the most important aspect of medical billing, and arguably the most difficult part of the job, is the challenge of medical billing codes. What makes coding in medical billing such a challenge? Many aspects, but first it’s important to understand the purpose of medical billing codes. Medical billing codes are what physicians submit to insurance companies or HMO’s (health maintenance organizations) in order to receive payment for each patient visit. Or, as it’s referred to in medical billing terms, each encounter. Part of what makes …
Medicare Contracting Changes
When billing to Medicare, expect some medical reimbursement delays in the upcoming years. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is currently reforming contractor workload for medical billing claims that come in. The speedy implementation of this medical billing reform may lead to reimbursement delays and errors. Congress mandated that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reform their contracting system. This needs to be completed by October of 2011. However, since estimates of huge savings have been made, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wants to speed up this medical billing contractor reform. Their goal is to have it completed by 2009, which is two years earlier. This …
