Medical Billing Blog with Medical Billing & Coding Info & Articles
Welcome to the Medical Billing and Coding Blog
Welcome to the medical billing blog containing news and articles relating to medical billing, medical coding, ICD, HIPAA and practice management functions.
2004-2024 Celebrating 20 Years of Healthcare RCM Articles
The Blog Currently Contains 1,265+ Healthcare Articles
Using Disaster Related Codes in Medical Billing
Disasters such as 9/11 and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina have made it apparent that medical billing needs to be able to reflect these unfortunate situations. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued new codes to reflect these conditions. Not all medical billers are aware of them and how to use them. The new condition code that should be used in medical billing for coding disaster related service claims is DR (disaster related). The new medical billing modifier is CR (Catastrophic/disaster related). Any institution can use either one of these codes, no matter what the location of the facility is. There is one exception to this rule. Suppliers and …
Protection of PHI-Patients That Use DME Services
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of medical billing is protecting your patients’ PHI. Durable medical equipment (DME) companies can have just as much of a problem with confidentiality as any other medical facility or practice. There are four main tips for DME businesses to protect the medical billing PHI information. The first rule is medical equipment tracking. Some medical devices contain personal medical billing PHI information. When these devices are used by a patient, they could potentially breach that confidentiality if the information was not properly stored or disposed. It is much easier to track the device itself than to track the information the device gathers. Tracking devices …
Accurate Medical Billing For Incision Codes
A common medical billing question is: When is it appropriate to use an incision code. This question comes up many times when the removal of foreign bodies occur. In only certain instances would you report an incision code in medical billing. When removing a foreign body, if the physician makes an actual incision to remove the object, then the proper incision medical billing code should be used. The two main incision codes are 10120 (Incision and removal of foreign body, subcutaneous tissues; simple) and 10121 ( Incision and removal of foreign body, subcutaneous tissues; complicated.) This seems fairly simple, however, there are certain medical billing qualifications incisions must meet. If …
Determining One MD or Two in Billing Procedures
In the following scenario, how would you code it? A child presents to the ED with a very high fever and enough symptoms that the physician on duty suspects meningitis. A spinal tap is performed under moderate sedation. If the same doctor performed the sedation and the spinal tap, you would report it as 99143-99145 (moderate sedations services….performed by the same physician), however if two separate physicians performed the sedation, then you would need to identify the procedures as two separate procedures by two different physicians and use 99148-99150 (moderate sedation services …provided by a physician other than the health care professional performing the diagnostic or therapeutic service). You will …
Understanding Medical Billing and Revenue Codes
Not all medical billing is generated from physician’s services. Sometimes services are rendered to patients and the medical billing created from those procedures need to be submitted to the various insurance carriers, but they also need three things: a price, a procedure code, and a revenue code. Revenue codes indicate to the type of service that you are billing for; revenue codes are 3-digit codes, and those revenue codes must match up with specific procedure codes to designate what services were rendered. For instance, if you are using a 360 revenue code, you’re stating that the services rendered were performed in the operating room, and therefore, the procedure codes that …
