Medical Billing Blog with Medical Billing & Coding Info & Articles

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Welcome to the medical billing blog containing news and articles relating to medical billing, medical coding, ICD, HIPAA and practice management functions.

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New HCPCS Medical Billing Tool

Your practice should know where to look for medical billing changes each year. When dealing with HCPCS consolidated billing, many billers become confused about what codes are excluded from this type of billing. Before allowing your staff members to do medical billing, be sure they know where to look for answers to their coding questions. The source to find consolidated HCPCS medical billing codes is no longer in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Skilled Nursing Facility Help File. Since September 25, 2005, CMS has tried to steer medical billing staff members away from this file. Now, however, it is more important to do so. A new website has

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P on March 30, 2009

Watch Out for New Medical Billing DNA Test

Keeping current with your medical billing codes could help your lab succeed. New tests and lab works are developed each and every year. Some of these new tests have a positive impact on your medical billing, while others have no impact at all. A new test call Fluorescence Chain Reaction (FCR) may have an extremely positive impact on your medical billing. Fluorescence Chain Reaction is a brand new lab test that checks human DNA. The amazing aspect of this test is the short amount of time needed to retrieve results. This method takes less than five minutes to produce accurate information. Although insurance payers may be more familiar with the

Published By: Kathryn Etienne, CCS-P on March 15, 2009

Medical Billing with 59025

Using the medical billing code 59025 can be a sticky situation. This is an example of a current procedural terminology code that is often misused in medical billing offices. There are certain instances when the code 59025 is appropriate, and other times it is not appropriate in medical billing. The medical billing code 59025 means fetal non-stress test. A non-stress test is used to detect accelerations in the fetal heart rate over a 20-40 minute window. If no accelerations are found, the physician uses instruments to stimulate the baby or wake the baby up into a moving state. To be considered a true non-stress test in medical billing, these elements,

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P on March 2, 2009

Medical Billing Conversion Factor Cut 4.4 Percent

Medical Billing Conversion Factor Cut 4.4 Percent Medical billing reimbursements are looking dismal for 2006. Although inflation rises, the Medicare conversion factor will lower from 2005 to 2006. You may need to find other areas in your practice to compensate for medical billing reimbursement loss. In early November of 2005, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services released the 2006 fee schedule for physicians. The Medicare conversion factor, that has a lot to do with payment fee schedules, was slashed by 4.4%. The medical billing conversion factor and relative value units are the two major factors used in the schedule construction. In 2005 the conversion factor was 37.8975. This year,

Published By: Kathryn Etienne, CCS-P on February 28, 2009

Medical Billing Mesh

Medical Billing Mesh Mesh placement medical billing can be a mess. Hernia repairs are very common, therefore mesh placements are very common. To keep your mesh placement medical billing accurate there are four steps to follow. There are many different types of hernias. Mesh placement in medical billing is only allowed for two types: ventral and incisional hernia repairs. The first step to correctly do medical billing for mesh is to be sure the surgery was a ventral or incisional hernia repair. The second medical billing step for mesh placement is similar to the first step. You must always remember that any other hernia repair will not reimburse separately for

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P on February 17, 2009