Medical Billing Blog with Medical Billing & Coding Info & Articles
Our blog contains news and articles relating to numerous healthcare sectors including revenue cycle management, medical billing, medical coding, ICD, HIPAA, practice management functions and more.
Can NPP Services Be Reimbursed?
Absolutely, as long as the services meet the minimum criteria and you’re medical billing documentation is ironclad. If you aren’t getting a reimbursement for the services rendered to patients by a nonphysician practitioner (NPP) affiliate with your practice, you’re leaving money on the table for the insurance company that rightfully belongs to your practice. Learn the rules of the carrier and take the time to bill under the NPP provider number and statistics how that over three-fourths of the health plans billed would reimburse at an average rate of 85%. While this isn’t a full reimbursement, it is far better than not receiving anything in return for your services rendered. …
Better Reimbursements With Central Venous Access Billing
Make sure that you’re using the proper medical billing codes when reporting CVA services, if you’re not using CPT codes 76937 and 75998, you may not be getting the full reimbursement for this service. If a physician performs an ultrasound guided procedure, the code 76937 will give additional money for the procedure. This code means: ultrasound guidance for vascular access requiring ultrasound evaluation of potential access sites, documentation of selected vessel patency, concurrent real-time ultrasound visualization of vascular needle entry. This means 76937 can be billed separately from the CVA placement code. One thing to note is that this code is only allowed one time per session in medical billing …
Busting the Pediatric Patient History Myth
Patient history, or PHI is an aspect of medical billing that has a myth attached. Contrary to popular belief, it is safe practice to allow any office member to take the review of systems and the family social history. These two evaluation and management history elements can actually be taken by absolutely anyone that is employed by the practice. It is ok in medical billing for even a parent or a secretary to take down this information as long as the information is reviewed and signed off on by the acting pediatrician. The only part of an evaluation and management visit that the physician or nurse practitioner must complete for …
Don’t Sweat "No Fever" Medical Billing
When a patient presents for emergency management services with various symptoms pertaining to the flu and no fever is found, you may be questioning exactly what should be noted in the medical necessity and other medical documentation sections of your medical billing form. You will not want to use this information under the history element. The 1997 “Documentation Guidelines for E/M Services” does not reference pertinent negatives in the context of the history of present illness (HPI). Instead, it references pertinent negatives in the context of the review of systems (ROS). Be certain not to check the associated signs and symptoms box of HPI. Instead, you should count the statement …
Understanding Locum Tenens for Your Medical Billing
Locum tenens is simply when one physician substitutes temporarily for another in the same capacity. There are some differences in billing for services performed by a locum tenens professional, however the 60-day time frame will apply. First and foremost, be sure you are appending modifiers Q5 (Service furnished by a substitute physician under a reciprocal billing arrangement) and Q6 (Service furnished by a locum tenens physician) as appropriate to use. The 60-day rule causes a lot of confusion. Basically, the clock starts ticking from the beginning of service and then runs for 60 consecutive days. It doesn’t matter whether the locum tenens or reciprocal billing physician provides services every day …
Are You Submitting Your DME Claims to the Right Region?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are making improvements in their durable medical equipment handling of medical billing departments. Very soon, they plan on implementing new Durable Medical Equipment Regional Carrier (DMERC) responsibilities. The durable medical equipment changes are designed to improve costs, quality of care, and medical billing efficiency. The medical billing regions A and D will replace their DMERCs with Durable Medical Equipment Medicare Affiliated Contractors (DME MACs). This department will handle all the medical billing, and day to day operations such as customer service. A second program, called Program Safeguard Contractors (PSCs) will have the responsibilities of handling any medical billing fraud cases and reviews for …
Medical Billing for B-12 Injections
Have you updated your methods for billing for B-12 injections? To eliminate potential medical billing problems, there are five steps to follow to ensure smooth B-12 reimbursement. The first medical billing step is to replace the injection administration codes for the B-12. These codes include the current procedural terminology codes 90782, 90788, and G0351. These medical billing codes were deleted from the 2006 CPT list. The new policy is to use one CPT for the injection: 90772 (Therapeutic, prophylactic or diagnostic injection; subcutaneous or intramuscularly). The second step when doing medical billing for B-12 is to make sure a family physician is present during the entire administration. The medical billing …
Getting The Best Myomectomy Medical Billing Reimbursements
If you work in the billing department of a gynecologist’s office, myomectomy coding won’t be unknown to you, but in order to reap the maximum benefits of this procedure, there are a few key components you should keep in mind when doing medical billing for a myomectomy procedure. First of all, there are two major ways to perform a myomectomy: open and laparoscopic. Likewise, there are two sets of current procedural terminology codes that are acceptable to use for myomectomies in medical billing. If you perform a laparoscopic myomectomy, you should either use the medical billing code 58545 (Laparoscopy surgical, myomectomy, excision; 1 to 4 intramural myomas with total weight …
Medical Billing Reimbursements Will Increase for Home Care
Many states will be reaping the rewards of increased home care medical billing reimbursements, due to an experiement currently going on in a few states. A few states, such as Wisconsin and Missouri, have been working to come up with a solution for this big expense. Improved medical billing reimbursement and funding may be the answer to improving home care. Wisconsin is one of the few states implementing a program called the Family Care program. This provides assistance for low income senior citizens and disabled people for long term care. These folks already feel the hardship of medical billing costs. The program is designed to ease some of those expenses …
Is The Same Day Admission and Discharge Myth Costing You Money?
There is a long held myth in the medical billing community that you can’t bill for an admission and discharge on the same day. However, the truth of the matter is that you can generally bill for a discharge from one facility and an admission to another, as long as the same physician is present for both events. This means that the attending physician will leave one facility and go to the next facility. This is a common occurence with transfers between rehab or psych facilities, or a transfer from a hospital to a nursing home. The dilemma is that since you cannot transfer the patient’s chart from one facility …
