Watch frequency and provide documentation to rationalize extra pay.
Applying modifier 22 (Increased procedural services) can help increase reimbursement if your neurosurgeon documents a greater-than-usual effort during a surgical service. To ensure your claims’ success, surgeons and coders must also…
Hint: Gathering upfront pay and watching E/Ms make a difference.
Children need physicals to participate in their favorite sports year round, but the demand can grow with warm weather approaching. Ideally, the need for sports physicals should provide the opportunity…
Anesthesia, patient well-being can clue you in to the best modifier choice.
When your urologist ends a procedure early, you know you need to append a modifier to the procedure code, but the challenge is deciding between modifier 52 or…
Technical and professional components hold your clues.
What do insurers expect for documentation of tympanometry or other diagnostic tests? That’s the question Pediatric Coding Alert subscriber Paula Escobar with Riverside Pediatric Group asked, so we went looking for answers.
Starting…
Keep tabs on details to help justify more extensive treatments later.
Plantar fasciitis — a condition in which the plantar fascia becomes inflamed and painful — is the most common form of heel pain and can be treated many different…
Test your ob record skills with this four part challenge.
If your ob-gyn simply confirms a patient’s pregnancy during an office visit, you’ll be able to report V72.42 (Pregnancy, confirmed). But when should you start the ob record? Take this…
Focus on form and drug to pinpoint the correct asthma supply code.
Are you clear on how to report asthma procedures and inhalers? Follow this advice, and you’ll breathe easy when it comes to asthma related claims.
Propellant-Driven Inhaler Falls…
Test your 2010 consultation coding understanding with these questions.
Consultation coding has every practice on edge this year. Ensure that you’ve got a handle on this complicated coding and billing situation by trying your hand at this question.
Question: When a visit with a Medicare inpatient that would normally have been coded as a consultation does not […]
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What your pulmonologist writes in the documentation matters.
The pulmonologist’s documentation, along with the patient’s medical record can make or break your chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) reporting. One key is making sure that your coding accurately identifies the patient’s specific pulmonary condition and any other associated acute condition (if necessary).
Background: According to the National Heart […]
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Assigning an ICD-9 code merely to get your claim paid could land you in legal hot water.
Medical coders face a lot of questions each day in the course of their work, but one question you should not be asking is “which diagnosis code should I put on this claim if I want to collect?”
When […]
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