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Question: If our surgeon removes a sebaceous cyst from the back that measures 2.5 x 1.75 x 0.5 cm, should we add up all the dimensions or should we just use the biggest dimension of 2.5? Is the answer the same if this were a tumor instead of a cyst? An...
You’re not only losing revenue—you’re also coding improperly.
CMS data from previous years shows that medical practices undercodè E/M claims to the tune of over $1 billion annually—that’s money that physiciáns could have collected based on their documentation, but forfeited because they reported a lower-level codè than they should have. But remember that your responsibility as someone who submits claims to Medicarè is to codè based on the documentation—anything else is incorrect coding.
If you’re one of the practices that’s downcoding claims, take note of the following reasons that you should codè based on your documentation rather than undercoding.
Could You Be Triggering an Audit?
The number one reason that many practices undercodè is because they don’t want to “trigger an audit.” However, coding all low-level E/M codès is sure to get a payer’s attention, because the claims reviewers will be wondering why you never offer high-level evaluations to your patients.
When claims reviewers review “bell curves” to determine whether a practice is coding outside the norm, they aren’t just looking for upcoding—they are looking at trends across the board. This means that a practice with all 99212s and 99213s will be vulnerable, because nearly every practice sees more complex patients requiring high-level E/Ms at least once in a while. If an auditor reviews your rècords and determines that you’re deliberately downcoding claims, they’ll conclude that you’ve been coding improperly.
Consider Compliance Implications
If you’re deliberately undercoding your claims to stay under the radar, you’re technically violating the False Claims Act because you are knowingly submitting a false claim. “It’s a violation just as much as deliberate upcoding is a violation, but the government most likely isn’t going to pursue it because ultimately it savès the Medicarè program money,” says John B. Reiss, PhD, JD, a health care attorney...
Educate your physicián to keep you in the loop on patients’ development.
Just because a patient enters the hospital with one diágnosis doesn’t mean she’ll have that diágnosis for her entire stay. And if you bill for your physicián’s hospital visits with an out-of-date diágnosis, you could lose money or face fraud charges.
The problem: Diagnoses can change in the hospital due to various reasons, including the following, among others: The physicián may narrow down the patient’s problem. For example, a patient may be admitted with chest páin, and the doctor may rule out myocardial infarction and decide the problem is actually gastrointestinal in nature.
The patient may develop other problems. The patient may be admitted for dehydration problems but may start having chest páins. The patient may experience complications that lead their original complaint to worsen significantly. You can’t wait for the hospital to send you medical rècords and hope to bill in a timely fashion. You could be waiting six weeks after the patient gets out of the hospital for any rècords. So it’s up to your physicián to let you know if a patient’s diágnosis has changed.
Do this: Educate your physiciáns, and let them know that just because the patient has been admitted with a particular diágnosis doesn’t mean they should bill for that diágnosis for each visit. To help your physicián track his hospital visits, you might consider giving each physicián a simple form to rècord these evaluations. The physicián could put a sticker with the patient’s hospital identifier on the form and then write the date of each visit, the level of service and the diágnosis. Each sheet will have roóm for 10 or 12 patient visits.
Diágnosis Tracking Is In the Cards
Another approach is to give your doctor a...
Question: If our surgeon removes a sebaceous cyst from the back that measures 2.5 x 1.75 x 0.5 cm, should we add up all the dimensions or should we just use the biggest dimension of 2.5? Is the answer the same if this were a tumor instead of a cyst?
Anesthesia, patient well-being can clue you in to the best modifier choice.
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