Medical Coding and Billing Articles
by Find-A-Code and friends
recent articles
Select the title to see a summary and a link to the full article.
January 19th, 2021
AMA Announcement of Additional COVID Vaccine Codes and Guideline Changes in December
| Published January 15th, 2021 - Last Review/Update January 19th, 2021
On Friday, December 17, 2020, the AMA announced several changes in relation to the addition of new codes for the COVID-19 vaccine under development by AstraZeneca and University of Oxford. Codes 91302, 0021A, and 0022A were published on the AMA website and will be effective once they have received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA.
January 11th, 2021
HIPAA Penalty Changes
| Published January 11th, 2021
On January 5, 2021, H.R. 7898 was signed into law by President Trump. This new law modifies the HITECH Act such that when an organization experiences a breach, fines and/or penalties may be reduced if (for at least a year) they have instituted “recognized security practices” as defined within the law.
January 11th, 2021
ICD-10 Code Updates for January 1st
| Published January 11th, 2021
Be aware that new ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes took effect on January 1, 2021. Rarely have ICD-10-CM codes been released in January, but as you may have guessed, these changes are in relation to COVID-19. The information in this article will help your organization understand these changes.
January 5th, 2021
CMS Final Rule Changes E/M Reporting Guidelines
| Published January 5th, 2021
Just when we thought we had figured out Evaluation and Management (E/M) reporting for 2021, CMS released their final rule and now we will need to make some adjustments. While CMS stated that they were adopting the AMA guidelines for E/M office or other outpatient services, they did make a few changes.
December 8th, 2020
Common Medical to Dental Procedures and Where to Find Them
| Published December 8th, 2020
With healthcare integrating and consolidating the delivery of healthcare systems, it only makes sense using medical insurance affords better management of care, dental providers are quickly picking up the slack on dental policies and utilizing healthcare coverage, understanding this affords better care for their patients. There are many common dental procedures that ...
December 8th, 2020
Locating Periodontal Disease in ICD-10-CM
| Published December 8th, 2020
When coding a diagnosis for periodontal disease, keep in mind there are more options than just chronic or acute. To get started, look at chapter 11, Diseases of the digestive system (K00-K95). Looking at this section a little further, you can see this is where the oral cavity is coded ...
December 8th, 2020
CDT and CPT - The Same but Different!
| Published December 8th, 2020
Reporting a CPT code for an evaluation of a patient is based on time and if the patient is a new or established patient. Evaluation and Management codes are different than other codes, it is important to understand how they are used, prior to 2021 they were based on a ...
December 8th, 2020
IPPS and DRG's: What it Means
| Published December 8th, 2020
Understanding hospital pricing can get complicated, so we have broken it down according to CMS and the acute Inpatient Prospective Payment System, also known as IPPS. Find-A-Code uses IPPS for inpatient pricing with our MS-DRG grouper. The following information comes from CMS.gov and answers the most common questions regarding DRGs ...
December 8th, 2020
Final Rule on Communications Technology and 2021 Physicians Fee Schedule
| Published December 8th, 2020
To create a healthcare system that will benefit providers as well as Medicare beneficiaries there have been several new rules issued that begin on or after January 01, 2021. CMS released the final policy and payment provisions on December 01, 2020, which includes the physician fee schedule (PFS) for 2021. ...
November 18th, 2020
How to Search Find-A-Code for Medicare Policies and Guidelines — LCDs, NCDs and Articles —
| Published November 18th, 2020
Help for Searching Find-A-Code when searching for Medicare Policies and Guidelines — LCDs, NCDs and/or Articles.
November 18th, 2020
Cross-A-Code Instructions in Find-A-Code
| Published November 18th, 2020
Cross-A-Code is a tool found in Find-A-Code which helps you to locate codes in other code sets that help you when submitting a claim.
November 12th, 2020
COVID Vaccine Codes Announced
| Published November 11th, 2020 - Last Review/Update November 12th, 2020
On November 10, 2020, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced the addition of two new codes which will be used for the new COVID-19 vaccines along with 4 new administration codes to be used when reporting the administration of these vaccines.
November 4th, 2020
Staging and Grading Periodontitis
| Published November 4th, 2020
We now understand periodontitis may present itself as a manifestation of systemic diseases in fact; according to DeltaDental, research shows that more than 90 percent of all systemic diseases have oral manifestations, including swollen gums, mouth ulcers, dry mouth, and excessive gum problems. Some of these diseases include:
Diabetes
Leukemia
Oral cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Heart ...
October 28th, 2020
Incident To
| Published October 28th, 2020
Just about any large clinic you visit will have non-physician practitioners, or NPPs. These will include physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and clinical nurses for example. Practices and clinics can bill under the NPPs if they are credentialed with the payer, but the reimbursement is only 85% of the fee schedule. There ...
October 27th, 2020
OIG – Fraud and Abuse Study with COVID-19 Testing
| Published October 27th, 2020
According to the Office of Inspector General (OIG), “The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to an unprecedented demand for diagnostic laboratory testing to determine whether an individual has the virus. Beyond the COVID-19 tests, laboratories can also perform add-on tests, for example, to confirm or rule out diagnoses ...
October 20th, 2020
CMS Expands Telehealth Again
| Published October 20th, 2020
On October 14, 2020, CMS announced further changes to expand telehealth coverage. Eleven (11) new codes have been added to their list of covered services bringing the current total to 144 services. The new services include some neurostimulator analysis and programming services as well as some cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation services.
October 12th, 2020
What is the Difference Between the Medicare 1995 and 1997 Documentation Guidelines for E/M Services?
| Published October 12th, 2020
When Medicare determined that providers could follow EITHER the 1995 OR the 1997 Documentation Guidelines for Evaluation and Management Services to determine which level of E/M service to report, because CMS had not clarified that portions of the 1995 and 1997 guidelines could be used together to determine the level of ...
October 12th, 2020
Medicare Improper Payment Report for Chiropractic (2019)
| Published October 12th, 2020
CMS audits claims on an annual basis to identify improper payments. These improper payments do not measure fraud. Rather, they estimate the share of payments that did not meet Medicare coverage, coding, and billing rules. In the most recent Improper Payment Report by specialty, chiropractic has the highest Part B improper payment ...
October 12th, 2020
Medicare Improper Payment Report for Behavioral Health Services (2019)
| Published October 12th, 2020
CMS audits claims on an annual basis to identify improper payments. These improper payments do not measure fraud. Rather, they estimate the share of payments that did not meet Medicare coverage, coding, and billing rules. In the most recent Improper Payment Report, behavioral health services have some of the highest Part ...
October 12th, 2020
Medicare Improper Payment Report (2019)
| Published October 12th, 2020
The Medicare Improper Payment Report for 2019 has been released by the OIG. Please note that the improper payment rate does not measure fraud. Rather, it estimates the payments that did not meet Medicare coverage, coding, and billing rules. The estimated Medicare FFS payment accuracy rate (claims paid correctly) from July ...
articles by subject
articles by specialty
articles by payer
articles by location
articles by month
article requests
If you would like a specific article written on a medical coding and billing topic, please contact us.
contact
innoviHealth Systems, Inc.62 East 300 North
Spanish Fork, UT 84660
Phone: 801-770-4203 (9-5 Mountain)
Email:
Thank you for choosing Find-A-Code, please Sign In to remove ads.
Quick, Current, Complete - www.findacode.com