Facilities Articles and Resources

Are you using something other than two-midnight? Here’s why you shouldn’t be. Is there the possibility that your utilization management team and physician advisors are applying InterQual, MCG, or any other utilization tool other than the two-midnight rule to your Medicare admissions? Over the last few months, it has...

New ONC data show that, as of 2021, nearly all non-federal acute care hospitals were enabled to electronically prescribe controlled substances (EPCS). According to the American Hospital Association (AHA) Information Technology (IT) Supplement Survey, the proportion of non-federal acute care hospitals enabled for EPCS increased from 67% in...

When is a patient an inpatient? A reader we’ll call Michelle asked a question during a recent Monitor Mondays broadcast — a question that encapsulated many of them: how can a Medicare patient who stays two midnights for a non-medical reason be an inpatient?  For example, consider a...

The decision regarding the most appropriate care setting for a given surgical procedure is determined by the physician based on the patient's individual clinical needs and preferences. Of course, there is a difference in reimbursement, and the billing depends on where the procedure took place, such as an office setting, inpatient ...

If you're looking for ankle fractures in ICD-10-PCS, you may need to look a little deeper. Let's take a look at coding an ankle fracture such as a trimalleolar fracture. PCS coding can be confusing as it is nothing like CPT coding; with CPT we can simply code an ankle ...

The UB-04 Claim Form, also known as CMS-1450, is used for submitting claims for reimbursement for specially designated facilities. The 837i is the electronic version of the form. Much like the 1500 Claim Form, maintained by the National Uniform Claim Committee, the UB-04 Claim Form is maintained by the National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) which maintains lists of approved codes used on various fields on the form (e.g., revenue codes, condition codes). Third-party payers, including Medicare, may have their own adaptations of the general instructions published by the NUBC.