Medical Billing Blog: Section - Medical Coding

Archive of all Articles in the Medical Coding Section

This is the archive containing links to all articles written in the Medical Coding 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.

HIPAA Clarifications Coming for Mental Health Workers

If you work in the mental health area, you can expect there to be a coming clarification on how HIPAA and FERPA should be interpreted along with a other state and federal privacy laws dealing mostly with situations concerning mental health workers when dealing with patients in conjunction with educations and law enforcement. This change is largely in part to the misinterpretations of privacy laws that were contributed to the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this spring, however it was not attributed to the laws themselves, concluded federal officials in a report to the President. The report was a compilation of data that was put together by several different agencies including

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P | No Comments

Medical Billing Dilemma: Adjustment of Gastric Band

Sometimes after a gastric band procedure, the band may slip during healing and need to be adjusted. The uncertain thing is how to bill the procedure since you have already billed the global. HCPCS temporary code S2083 (Adjustment of gastric band diameter via subcutaneous port by injection or aspiration of saline) or CPT code 43771 but both of these require that the physician use a laparoscope during the procedure and usually moving the band is done through injecting saline or removing saline from the band to make it easier to adjust through a subQ port. For most instances you can use S2083, normally you will only use 43771 if patient

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P | No Comments

Break Out Well-Woman-Care Visits For Better Reimbursements

A little known fact about well-woman care is that in many cases, you can break out the breast exam and pap smear and realize a reimbursement for both procedures if the patient is covered by Medicare. If the physician provides a complete well-woman exam for a Medicare patient, you should report G0101 (Cervical or vaginal cancer screening; pelvic and clinical breast examination) for the breast and pelvic exams. When the physician also obtains a Pap smear, use Q0091 (Screening Papanicolaou smear; obtaining, preparing and conveyance of cervical or vaginal smear to laboratory)and this will enable your practice to realize a reimbursement for both services. Just make sure that you have

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P | No Comments

Taking the Headache Out of Credentialing

Are you swamped? So overwhelmed with patients, billing, invoices, emergencies and other day to day practice worries that you don’t even have the time to get yourself credentialed with all the carriers possible. No one has to tell you that the more insurances you accept, the more patients you can see and the more revenue you can generate for your practice. Credentialing is the key. Did you know your medical billing partner can take some of the heat off you and not only compile and submit your medical billing, they can also get your practice credentialed with any carrier you choose. If you have a busy practice, you may be

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P | No Comments

Servicing Hospitals? Know Your CCR

Your provider number has a strong impact on your medical billing cost to charge ratio (CCR). If your hospital is merging with another hospital, it is important to figure in the possibly new Cost to Charge Ratio medical billing payments you will receive. There are two avenues merging hospitals can take. The first method is when two hospitals merge together while one of the existing provider numbers is kept in tact. In this instance, one hospital keeps their medical billing number, while the other one drops theirs and joins the first. The hospital that drops their medical billing provider number will receive a new cost to charge ratio. The ratio

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P | No Comments