If a patient comes in and a urinalysis (UA) is ordered and performed, can it be counted as data reviewed and/or analysis? If the practice is billing for the UA, then you should NOT count it in the data reviewed and/or analysis. The 2021 CPT® book (E&M Services Guidelines Page 8) states “The actual performance [...]
2020 has kept healthcare reimbursement on its toes, and with 9 days of the year remaining, one thing we can count on is more change. The stimulus bill that Congress signed yesterday, Dec. 21, 2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, includes health care provisions that change policy in the 2021 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule, released [...]
On Friday, October 2, 2020, Secretary of Health and Human services, Alex Azar II renewed the determination of a public health emergency exists. This PHE implemented January 27, 2020 will continue for another 90 days into January 2021. This extends the COVID-19 Emergency Declaration Blanket Waivers for Health Care Providers, including flexibility of Telehealth services, [...]
August 12, 2020 CMS announced an extension the education and operations testing period for the Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) program for advanced diagnostic imaging through 2021. AUC is expected to impact all providers who order advanced diagnostic imaging (computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), nuclear medicine, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)) with limited exceptions. [...]
The Interim Final Rule (IFR) released 4/30/2020 recognized the need for reimbursement for COVID -19 assessment and specimen collection. Pre-public health emergency (PHE), specimen collection was usually considered part of the office or outpatient evaluation and management (E&M) service. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) realized early on during the PHE, that testing [...]
Codes and assignments are changing so quickly during this public health emergency, and in the beginning there was not a specific ICD-10-CM code for our current strain of COVID. Under the circumstances, the CDC provided a document the ICD-10-CM Official Coding Guidelines - Supplement Coding encounters related to COVID-19 Coronavirus Outbreak 2/20/2020-3/31/2020 and that document [...]
There is a lot of confusion about what ICD-10-CM codes to report for services for patients who reside in a nursing facility. The determining factor when selecting an ICD-10-CM code should always be the documentation in the patient's medical record. Effective 4/1/2020 the CDC provided clear guidance in the form of the ICD-10-CM Official Coding [...]
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting for the American Portable Diagnostics Association's 2020 Midyear Billing Webinar. We answered some of the burning questions members had on documentation requirements, coding quandaries and COVID-19 issues (just to name a few). Today the questions continue to roll in. A member wanted clarification on what modifier (50 [...]
The CDC has issued an updated ICD-10-CM Official Coding and Reporting Guideline for April 1, 2020-September 30, 2020. This addition includes clear guidance to reporting COVID. Reach out for more information.
