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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The Blog Currently Contains 1,265+ Healthcare Articles
When to Use 90782
Knowing when to use code 90782 in emergency department procedures can help with your medical billing reimbursements. For example, if a doctor examines a patient in the ED for an injury, and injects a preventative tetanus toxoid, your first instinct might be to use 90782 as a modifier for this procedure. But you would not receive a medical billing reimbursement because the incident to provision does not apply in the emergency department so you would not be able to justify having the doctor administer this injection. There would be no way to justify the medical necessity of such a shot. However, when you are in an office setting the CPT …
Make Sure You’re Reporting Your Ulcer Treatment Claims Correctly
Often, patients who are confined to beds for long periods of time develop pressure ulcers. They are painful and need to be treated as quickly as possible as infections can set up within them that can be life threatening when the patient is already in a weakened condition. When a service is performed for a patient such as treatment of a pressure ulcer on an area of the body such as the lower back, the usual manner of treatment is to remove any devitalized tissue from the ulcer using a water jet and forceps. The area is then covered to allow it to not be rubbed on so the skin …
Aural Rehab Not Reimbursed?
Medical billing changes occur throughout each and every year and keeping up with those changes can be confusing. Aural Rehabilitation has become one major area of confusion since the 2006 update. The medical billing changes to Aural Rehab CPT codes has wrongly caused many people to believe Aural Rehabilitation is no longer a reimbursable service. Medicare actually assigned status code “I” to all new medical billing codes for auditory rehabilitation. These codes are 92630 and 92633. This means that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will not pay for auditory rehabilitation, only diagnostic audiology. However, this is only true if an audiologist performs the service and the medical billing. …
Code Designations Determine When to Use Modifier 59
When do I use medical billing modifier 59? This is a great question. It is one that many don’t ask, but most don’t know the correct answer to. One of the most important things to know about the medical billing modifier 59 is which code on which to append it. There are some basic medical billing rules that can teach you which code to use with modifier 59. The general assumption about modifier 59 (Distinct procedural service) is that it should be linked to the lower-valued code of the pair. Although this may be true a lot of times, it is not always true. There is a much better rule …
The Inside Scoop on Medical Billing for Tissue Adhesives
Coding for tissue adhesives can be confusing because there isn’t one set procedure for this. The coding that is used is determined by the type of wound and the severity of the repair when tissue adhesives are used for wound closures. The answer to this question will be different depending on which entity is paying the medical billing claim. When you code for the use of tissue adhesives, including Dermabond; Medicare has its own guidelines for reporting this procedure that you need to follow to be reimbursed. You should report G0168 for Medicare patients only. If you are reporting the procedure for a non-Medicare patient, you should use the CPT …
