Dealing With A Chronic Condition

Finding the proper code when you’re doing the medical billing for your office can be a sticky situation when you’re presented with a medical coding situation that you have never written up before. In the event that you have this arise, it is best to break down the procedure and double check your chosen codes to make sure that you’re choosing the most current sets possible describe the services that were given to the patient, in doing so you’ll save a lot of headaches regarding declined or improper reimbursements later on down the road.

When you have a perfect example of such a chronic condition that you need to code such as type II diabetes, you still need to take each specific condition into account. For example, any time you have a patient that comes in with an issue due to their chronic condition, you need to make sure that you code in accordance to the particular service provided by the physician. If you must put down an ICD-9 code with the paperwork, you need to make sure that you use them if they are relevant to the procedure or service at hand.

Of course, in many situations, you will find that the physician will have to consider the chronic condition itself when you are prescribing a particular medication to treat the patient. In this case, you need to make sure that you code correctly to reflect both the chronic condition as well as the treatment and prescription that are being placed on the patient.

Double check your coding when you’re doing your medical billing for a new type of situation. Your reimbursements depend on it!

View all Articles by: Kathryn Etienne, CCS-P