Medical Billing Blog: Section - Outsourcing
Archive of all Articles in the Outsourcing Section
This is the archive containing links to all articles written in the Outsourcing 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.
Understanding Locum Tenens for Your Medical Billing
Locum tenens is simply when one physician substitutes temporarily for another in the same capacity. There are some differences in billing for services performed by a locum tenens professional, however the 60-day time frame will apply. First and foremost, be sure you are appending modifiers Q5 (Service furnished by a substitute physician under a reciprocal billing arrangement) and Q6 (Service furnished by a locum tenens physician) as appropriate to use. The 60-day rule causes a lot of confusion. Basically, the clock starts ticking from the beginning of service and then runs for 60 consecutive days. It doesn’t matter whether the locum tenens or reciprocal billing physician provides services every day …
Are You Submitting Your DME Claims to the Right Region?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are making improvements in their durable medical equipment handling of medical billing departments. Very soon, they plan on implementing new Durable Medical Equipment Regional Carrier (DMERC) responsibilities. The durable medical equipment changes are designed to improve costs, quality of care, and medical billing efficiency. The medical billing regions A and D will replace their DMERCs with Durable Medical Equipment Medicare Affiliated Contractors (DME MACs). This department will handle all the medical billing, and day to day operations such as customer service. A second program, called Program Safeguard Contractors (PSCs) will have the responsibilities of handling any medical billing fraud cases and reviews for …
Getting The Best Myomectomy Medical Billing Reimbursements
If you work in the billing department of a gynecologist’s office, myomectomy coding won’t be unknown to you, but in order to reap the maximum benefits of this procedure, there are a few key components you should keep in mind when doing medical billing for a myomectomy procedure. First of all, there are two major ways to perform a myomectomy: open and laparoscopic. Likewise, there are two sets of current procedural terminology codes that are acceptable to use for myomectomies in medical billing. If you perform a laparoscopic myomectomy, you should either use the medical billing code 58545 (Laparoscopy surgical, myomectomy, excision; 1 to 4 intramural myomas with total weight …
Medical Billing Reimbursements Will Increase for Home Care
Many states will be reaping the rewards of increased home care medical billing reimbursements, due to an experiement currently going on in a few states. A few states, such as Wisconsin and Missouri, have been working to come up with a solution for this big expense. Improved medical billing reimbursement and funding may be the answer to improving home care. Wisconsin is one of the few states implementing a program called the Family Care program. This provides assistance for low income senior citizens and disabled people for long term care. These folks already feel the hardship of medical billing costs. The program is designed to ease some of those expenses …
The Dermabond Dilemma
When a wound needs closing and a tissue adhesive is used the medical billing coding can be different than when sutures or stitches are used. There are specific guidelines for medical billing when tissue adhesives are used. All adhesives including Dermabond have their own unique way of being reported on medical billing. Consult with Medicare or the carrier to ensure that you are meeting those guidelines prior to submitting your medical billing. There are five basic guidelines that Medicare requires in order to reimburse for this service and many carriers follow the same criteria for laceration closures utilizing Dermabond. You should report G0168 for Medicare patients only; the CPT code …
