Medical Billing Blog: Section - Medical Billing
Archive of all Articles in the Medical Billing Section
This is the archive containing links to all articles written in the Medical Billing 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.
Before You Code…..
Don’t even crack your code book unless you’ve done the following three things: Number 1 – Make sure that your ICD-9 codes book is from the current billing year. New codes are issued on October 1st of every year. Make that your Medical Billing New Years and put up the previous year’s code book to ensure that you don’t make a mistake and code from the incorrect set of codes. Number 2 – State by reviewing the diagnostic statements and make yourself a side list choosing the conditions you need to code in order to make sure you don’t miss anything when you’re choosing the proper ICD-9 codes. Number 3 …
Report – HHA’s and Hospices Are Billing Medicare Accurately
A recent report showed that HHA’s (home health agencies) and hospices are billing Medicare on an accurate level according to a report compiled by the CMS’ Comprehensive Error Rate Testing. The report showed that HHAs had a 1.4 percent error rate and hospices a 1.0 percent error rate in the November CERT report, which covers claims from April 2006 to March 2007. DME (durable medical equipment) suppliers had a wide range of error rates broken out by supplier type. The lowest was 0.6 percent for a medical supply company with prosthetic/orthotic personnel certified by an accrediting organization while the highest was a whopping 51 percent for “unknown supplier/provider” where it …
Home Care Payments Will Be Getting Close Scrutiny in 2008
On October 17, 2007 – the Senate Finance Committee met to discuss ways to pay for a fix to physician payment rates in 2008 and 2009, according to press reports. The heart of the meeting was to talk about the $30 billion in cuts needed to avert the doc pay cut and make other Medicare changes, and home care once again landed on the chopping block to have many home services radically reduced or have their funding cut all together.Some of the specifics of the home care that were discussed to be directly affected were wheelchair suppliers and oxygen providers are under discussion for reimbursement reductions to pay for the …
Emphysema Diagnosis Coding Tips
Want to know why your emphysema claims aren’t being fully reimbursed? Often, the reason is that you’re lacking two things when you submit your claim. You aren’t being detailed enough with your coding and your don’t have enough detailed medical documenation to back up your full diagnostic testing that is required to accurately diagnose emphysema and narrow the degree and type. When you’re compiling the medical billing for an established patient with active emphysema (492.8, Other emphysema) and they present and are complaining of shortness of breath (786.05); the physician provides inhalation treatment, trains the patient on using the nebulizer at home, and provides an expanded problem-focused examination and medical …
Common Varicose Vein Treatments
As more research is done regarding the relationship between varicose veins, blood clots and other complications; more and more patients are having the simple surgery and as a result there has been confusion about exactly how to code this procedure to get the fairest reimbursement for this service. Once you know the basics for setting it up – it’s easy! A good example would be if a patient with varicose veins in her left lower leg presents to the ED and is stating she has severe pain in her leg. One of the veins is clearly bleeding so the doctor will use a standard suture ligation to stem the bleeding …
