The Three R’s Of Radiology Medical Coding

The Three R’s Of Radiology Medical Coding

When performing medical billing for radiology it is important to remember the three R’s. To ensure your radiology claims will be processed accurately and without delay, there are three elements that should be included with your medical billing: request, render, report.

The first medical billing R for radiology is request. This means a physician has requested the opinion of a radiologist. This must be a formal request and needs to be written down in the patient’s record. If this is in a hospital setting, the request can be in the medical record, progress note, or a completely separate written request.

The second element required for radiology in medical billing is render. This simply means that the radiologist does a formal exam of the patient in question. This exam need to be thorough and complete for medical billing purposes.

The next R for medical billing is report. This report comes directly from the radiologist. It gives an opinion and advice to the referring physician in writing. If the exam was in a hospital setting, the written report can be in the patient’s common medical record.

To be sure a claim you submit for a radiology consultation gets paid as quickly as possible without denial, the medical billing must include the three R’s. Remember that if there is no documentation then the payer doesn’t know that something took place. If your practice does it’s own medical billing, be sure the billing personnel are aware of these requirements. If you get your billing outsourced by a medical billing firm, sit back, relax, and let the firm take care of all your claim problems. It is the job of the medical billing company to make sure the request, render, and report elements are all included in the claim.

View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P