Medical Billing Blog with Medical Billing & Coding Info & Articles
Our blog contains news and articles relating to numerous healthcare sectors including revenue cycle management, medical billing, medical coding, ICD, HIPAA, practice management functions and more.
14 things to know about medical coding
Medical coders play a crucial role in the revenue cycle process, as they help ensure health systems, hospitals and physicians are properly reimbursed for the services they provide. Here are 14 things to know about medical coding. 1. AAPC describes medical coding as “the transformation of healthcare diagnosis, procedures, medical services and equipment into universal medical alphanumeric codes.” 2. Once medical coding professionals assign a code to a specific healthcare service or procedure, the code is included on an insurance claim, according to AAPC. This code tells the insurer how much it owes for the care and helps determine how much the patient will be billed. 3. Coders use a …
The Latest Details on HIPAA Compliance Audits
Deven McGraw, deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has announced that the department’s plans for initiating onsite audits is currently on hold and will remain so until more than 200 desk audits have been completed. An article over on Data Breach Today gives us great detail on where HIPAA compliance audits stand with their enforcing agency. McGraw informed the HIMSS17 conference in February of the delay. We have decided that it makes a lot more sense to [first] take a look at all we had in the desk audit process and even prepare the overarching report to the public about how those …
Is Your Practice Violating HIPAA Regulations?
Corpus Christi Medical Associates (CCMA), a family practice in Corpus Christi, Texas, has always found it difficult to comply with HIPAA’s privacy and security regulations. “We struggle to have enough resources to dedicate to the ever-changing environment,” said J. Stefan Walker, MD, a family medicine physician at CCMA. “There is always something new and regulations are constantly evolving. It’s a moving target, and cyber-liability is probably the greatest risk, added Walker.” Despite this sentiment, Walker was determined not to be one of the practices listed on the “Wall of Shame” webpage maintained by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Practices are …
ICD-11 Beta is available in the trials at WHO
If you are tired of ICD-10, you can go checkout ICD-11 at WHO’s website. ICD-11 Beta is available in the trial stages. Visit the current version of ICD-11 on the World Health Organization website
5 biggest concerns for health execs in 2017
A new set of concerns has emerged among hospital and health system executives, according to The Advisory Board Company’s latest Annual Health Care CEO Survey. The survey, which was completed by 183 C-suite executives between December and January, found the No. 1 concern among health system leaders in 2017 is improving patients’ access to care in ambulatory or outpatient settings. Last year, this concern was ranked No. 6. An entirely new concern — finding innovative ways to lower expenses — came in at second place. The No. 3 concern was boosting market share for outpatient surgical procedures, up from No. 10 in 2016. “This shift in topic rankings reflects a …
Self-service data preparation and analytics
Improving claim collection rates is one way to boost revenue cycle performance, and hospitals can achieve this through various means. Frank Moreno, vice president of product marketing at Datawatch, shared the following tip with Becker’s Hospital Review:”Effective revenue cycle management is only attainable when healthcare organizations have a full view of their patient and operational data. Finance departments cannot wait for IT to provide detailed reports, or spend countless hours manually pulling data from EMRs, 835 and 837 remittance and other files.Yet that’s what is happening at organizations across the country every day. Instead, by using self-service data preparation and analytics solutions, finance teams can easily unlock hidden data to …
Who’s Accessing Your Health Data?
Despite the fact that ransomware and hacking attacks draw the biggest headlines, it is actually improper insider access that causes the highest number of data breaches. Such are the results from the most recent Protenus “Breach Barometer,” which analyzes reported and sometimes not so publicly reported breaches in healthcare each month. For those who follow privacy and security in healthcare, the Protenus findings are not that surprising. Reports of inappropriate access by insiders are frequent and show a disturbing trend. Many of the reports allege that information was not used in any detrimental manner. Only that snooping occurred. However, there are two problems with that view. First, even small insider …
Making Health IT Safer and Easier to Use
Every day, clinicians work tirelessly to provide the best possible care for their patients. Clinicians and other health care providers like hospitals are increasingly using health information technology (health IT) such as electronic health records (EHRs), and a growing body of evidence shows health IT can help them make care safer. However, new technology can pose challenges and risks. At the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), patient safety is a top priority, and that’s why we maintain the SAFER Guides to help with the implementation decisions clinicians make to reduce EHR associated patient harm. (SAFER is the acronym for Safety Assurance Factors for Electronic Health …
Managing HIPAA Risk with Outside Consultants
The rising complexity of healthcare, particularly as it relates to providers’ growing technical needs, is increasingly prompting healthcare organizations to seek the help of outside consultants. In engagements with healthcare entities, thought IT consultants try to minimize interaction with patient data, they often have access to protected health information (PHI). When working with HIPAA Covered Entities, consultants are treated as “business associates” and are required to comply with Privacy Rules designed to protect PHI. Managing HIPAA compliance when engaging outside consultants requires that consultants enter into a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). The BAA must: Describe the permitted and required uses of PHI by the business associate in the context of …
Seven Steps to Correctly Code Surgeries
It’s all in how you dissect the operative report. Many coders struggle with coding operative reports because there are so many guidelines and policies that affect code selection. The process is easier when you break it into seven steps: Review the header of the report. Review the CPT® codebook (start in the Index). Review the report/documentation. Make a preliminary code selection. Review the guidelines (for the preliminary codes). Review policies and eliminate the extras. Add any needed modifiers. These seven steps will ensure all the factors that may affect code selection are accounted. Let’s look at an example, and walk through the steps together. Step 1 Review the Header of the …
