Part B News | Part B News

Exchanges: Early bugs are no problem, but providers must avoid being forced into plans

10/10/2013

Worried that the health exchange glitches you’ve been hearing about will stop the flow of new patients you were expecting in January? Don’t be, our experts say. Instead, prepare to carefully inspect those new patients’ insurance information when they come in, or you could really get burned.

3 strategies to stop high denials on inpatient E/M codes

10/10/2013

by: Scott Kraft

Denial rates are up across the board when you bill E/M visits for hospital inpatients, including initial patient visits (99221-99223) and subsequent visits (99231-99233), according to a Part B News analysis. While overall utilization for each code dipped slightly, they all saw a boost in denial rates. The high utilization of inpatient E/M services means that even minor denial rate boosts add up to millions of lost payment dollars for physician practices.

Reduce audit risk by proper sequencing of diagnosis codes

10/10/2013

by: Scott Kraft

Your practice relies on proper use of CPT codes to determine payment for the services your physicians provide. But it’s diagnosis codes that can raise your risk during an audit – improper sequencing of diagnosis codes and filling your claims with excess diagnosis codes will cause problems, experts tell Part B News.

Prepare for LCDs with applicable ICD-10 codes to be finalized, published by April 2014

10/10/2013

by: Scott Kraft

Identify the local coverage determinations (LCDs) for the services your practice’s physicians render most often so you know how things will change once ICD-10 hits and new codes will apply to existing LCDs, experts say. To help make sure you have enough time to be ready, CMS ordered Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) to publish the new LCDs online by April 10, 2014.

Denial rates on the rise for initial, subsequent inpatient E/M visits

10/10/2013

by: Grant Huang

Your odds of seeing a denial when billing new and established patient E/M visits are on the rise — no matter which of the six codes you select, according to a Part B News analysis of Medicare billing data from 2011-2012 featured in this week’s benchmark. The increases are relatively small, but with over 110.2 million inpatient services billed in 2012, even a mild increase in denial rates is costly to physicians.

Shutdown update: Medicare payments still unaffected, online PECOS temporarily down

10/10/2013

by: Grant Huang

As the partial shutdown of the federal government drags on, you can rest assured that routine CMS functions, like paying you for services rendered, will continue normally. Medicare’s enrollment functions, including the processing of enrollment applications and revalidations, also continue, but the Internet-based system to access enrollment isn’t working right now.

Login

User Name:
Password:
Remember me Forgot password
Welcome to the new Part B News Online. If you are a returning user having trouble logging in, please click here.