How many times have you heard “it only takes one code to get the claim paid”? With the emphasis on the severity of illness and the move toward value-based reimbursement in today’s healthcare climate, it is more important than ever for coders to report all applicable diagnoses. There are three important pieces: what the provider documents, how to the coder interprets that documentation and codes it, and then how it is extrapolated.
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The reimbursement landscape is already a complicated one – and the highly-complex claims denials process only adds fuel to the fire. A denied claim is one that has been determined by a payor to be in appropriate. Once a coding specialist amends the errors on a rejected claim, they can resubmit it for consideration. The time-intensive process has a significant impact on the cash flow for any setting in the healthcare environment. They are also very costly to appeal.
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A California-based healthcare services provider and several of its affiliates have agreed to pay $30 million to resolve allegations they submitted inaccurate information about the health status of beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage Plans, according to the Department of Justice.
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Scrutiny of coding compliance in the growing ambulatory surgical center (ASC) market has increased in recent years from both Medicare and private payers. This will only increase as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) moves towards value-based care.
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In December 2018, a Pennsylvania for-profit hospital and health system, and its CEO agreed to pay a total of $12.5 million to settle allegations they submitted false claims to Medicare and other federal health care programs for orthopedic surgeries. The settlement resolves allegations that top executives exploited a loophole – AKA modifier 59 – that allowed them to double bill federal healthcare payers for surgeries and ignored coding consultants who advised them that they were improperly billing.
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Top 5 ProFee diagnosis changes found in recent HIA reviews: 1. I10 – Essential (Primary) Hypertension; 2. E11.9 – Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Without Complications; 3. K29.60 – Other Gastritis Without Bleeding; 4. R13.19 – Other Dysphagia; 5. I25.10 – Atherosclerotic Heart Disease of Native Coronary Artery Without Angina Pectoris.
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In 2003, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented Risk Adjustment Factors (RAF) and Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) coding to identify individuals with serious and/or chronic illnesses and assign them a risk factor score that is based on a combination of demographic information and reported diagnoses.
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The ICD-10-CM/PCS code changes – effective October 1, 2018 to September 31, 2019 – could be the culprit. Comparatively speaking, there are far less changes this year than in years past. The release includes: 279 new codes, 51 deleted codes,143 revised codes. But don’t let the smaller amount of changes fool you…
read more How many times have you heard “it only takes one code to get the claim paid”? With the emphasis on the severity of illness and the move toward value-based reimbursement in today’s healthcare climate, it is more important than ever for coders to report all applicable diagnoses. There are three important pieces: what the provider documents, how to the coder interprets that documentation and codes it, and then how it is extrapolated.
The reimbursement landscape is already a complicated one – and the highly-complex claims denials process only adds fuel to the fire. A denied claim is one that has been determined by a payor to be in appropriate. Once a coding specialist amends the errors on a rejected claim, they can resubmit it for consideration. The time-intensive process has a significant impact on the cash flow for any setting in the healthcare environment. They are also very costly to appeal.
A California-based healthcare services provider and several of its affiliates have agreed to pay $30 million to resolve allegations they submitted inaccurate information about the health status of beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage Plans, according to the Department of Justice.
Scrutiny of coding compliance in the growing ambulatory surgical center (ASC) market has increased in recent years from both Medicare and private payers. This will only increase as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) moves towards value-based care.
In December 2018, a Pennsylvania for-profit hospital and health system, and its CEO agreed to pay a total of $12.5 million to settle allegations they submitted false claims to Medicare and other federal health care programs for orthopedic surgeries. The settlement resolves allegations that top executives exploited a loophole – AKA modifier 59 – that allowed them to double bill federal healthcare payers for surgeries and ignored coding consultants who advised them that they were improperly billing.