All Articles Written by Kathryn Disney-Etienne, CCS-P, RT

All Articles Written by Kathryn Etienne, CCS-P - RETIRED

Welcome to the archived list of all medical billing articles written and previously posted to the site by Kathryn Etienne, CCS-P, retired Director of Operations.

All articles are listed below and categorized by date, newest to oldest. Click any article link below to read the entire article.

Bill One or Bill Twice for 97001/97002?

Patient evaluation codings can be very confusing. The patient initial evaluation code is 97001 (also, 97003, 92506, 92610) however if the patient is reevaluated (97002- patient reevaluation) within a 12 month period only one unit of service may be billed to Medicare Part B patients no matter how much time was spent actually servicing the patient. If you make a mistake and bill the carrier for the evaluation and a unit of service for the reevaluation, your claim will be denied based on incorrect coding no matter how much medical documentation you provide showing the necessity of the reevaluation of the patient. Keeping up with the fast paced changes of

Posted By: Kathryn on May 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

Is It Time to Outsource Your Medical Billing?

If you are noticing your medical billing claims are taking longer and longer to be reimbursed or you are having denials, rejections, or only partial reimbursements on your medical billing claims, it may be time to look at outsourcing your medical billing claims. You may feel as though you would be giving up control of your cash flow when actually you will have more control than ever. In fact, outsourcing your medical billing and coding needs through a medical billing partner is one of the smartest business moves you can make. The best company to handle your medical billing isn’t necessarily located around the corner from your practice or even

Posted By: Kathryn on April 20th, 2009 | No Comments

Two Removals are Similar and Different

To avoid raised rejection of your medical billing claims for similar procedures that will be coded due to different removals or different parts of the body affected, you need to make sure you have iron-clad documentation. In some cases, you will come across two removals that are very similar, but different. For example, if a pediatrician removes an extra digit from a newborn’s hand, and also removes a skin tag from the newborn, the removal of an extra digit and the removal of a skin tag fall under the same CPT code but fall into different ICD-9 codes. For these two procedures, you should report 11200 (11200 is the removal

Posted By: Kathryn on April 1st, 2009 | No Comments

Watch Out for New Medical Billing DNA Test

Keeping current with your medical billing codes could help your lab succeed. New tests and lab works are developed each and every year. Some of these new tests have a positive impact on your medical billing, while others have no impact at all. A new test call Fluorescence Chain Reaction (FCR) may have an extremely positive impact on your medical billing. Fluorescence Chain Reaction is a brand new lab test that checks human DNA. The amazing aspect of this test is the short amount of time needed to retrieve results. This method takes less than five minutes to produce accurate information. Although insurance payers may be more familiar with the

Posted By: Kathryn on March 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Medical Billing Conversion Factor Cut 4.4 Percent

Medical Billing Conversion Factor Cut 4.4 Percent Medical billing reimbursements are looking dismal for 2006. Although inflation rises, the Medicare conversion factor will lower from 2005 to 2006. You may need to find other areas in your practice to compensate for medical billing reimbursement loss. In early November of 2005, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services released the 2006 fee schedule for physicians. The Medicare conversion factor, that has a lot to do with payment fee schedules, was slashed by 4.4%. The medical billing conversion factor and relative value units are the two major factors used in the schedule construction. In 2005 the conversion factor was 37.8975. This year,

Posted By: Kathryn on February 28th, 2009 | No Comments