Medical Billing Blog: Section - General Info
Archive of all Articles in the General Info Section
This is the archive containing links to all articles written in the General Info section of our blog.
Click any of the article links below to read the entire article or browse another section to the right to read articles on another subject.
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 …
New HCPCS Medical Billing Tool
Your practice should know where to look for medical billing changes each year. When dealing with HCPCS consolidated billing, many billers become confused about what codes are excluded from this type of billing. Before allowing your staff members to do medical billing, be sure they know where to look for answers to their coding questions. The source to find consolidated HCPCS medical billing codes is no longer in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Skilled Nursing Facility Help File. Since September 25, 2005, CMS has tried to steer medical billing staff members away from this file. Now, however, it is more important to do so. A new website has …
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 …
Medical Billing with 59025
Using the medical billing code 59025 can be a sticky situation. This is an example of a current procedural terminology code that is often misused in medical billing offices. There are certain instances when the code 59025 is appropriate, and other times it is not appropriate in medical billing. The medical billing code 59025 means fetal non-stress test. A non-stress test is used to detect accelerations in the fetal heart rate over a 20-40 minute window. If no accelerations are found, the physician uses instruments to stimulate the baby or wake the baby up into a moving state. To be considered a true non-stress test in medical billing, these elements, …
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, …
