Due to high usage and informational usage by the medical billing community at large, the Medicare website has revamped certain areas to make their site easier to search and access. When a medical biller is looking up information, at the Medicare coverage site located at www.cms.hhs.gov/mcd/search.asp, it is now easier than ever to search for the coverage limitations and other required information that you need.

The page is now set up to ask if the biller is asking for a local or national coverage determination to avoid confusion and misinformation that was previously disseminated as there are certain differences between local and national coverages for certain procedures.

Medical billers may also now search under geographic area, keyword, ICD-9 code, CPT/HCPCS code, coverage topic, and effective dates. After you've typed in your criteria, click "search now" and wait for the results to pop up.

This will make it much easier to find out what you need to meet your Medicare criteria to get the maximum reimbursements for procedures done and also if a procedure isn't fully covered, find out what components are indeed covered so that the medical billing superbill can reflect that and ensure that the physician receives the best possible reimbursements for procedures and services rendered.

Labels: claims, consulting, medical-billing, medical-coding, modifiers, outsourcing