Patients are experiencing sticker shock when confronted with paying the new Medicare deductible, several of your peers tell Part B News. CMS raised the deductible to $155 this year, a 14.8% increase from $135 in 2009 (PBN 1/4/10). Thirty-five percent of your peers say more patients have had trouble paying the deductible this year compared to last year, according to an unscientific Part B News survey.

You're seeing sharp cuts to common cardiology services this year (PBN 11/16/09) thanks to several new rules in the final fee schedule, and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) decided to stem the damage by suing HHS over a CMS decision to use a new dataset to determine Medicare payments. But the lawsuit has been tossed out on a technicality, Part B News has learned. 

Bank on Congress acting to stop Medicare payments from falling by 21.3% on March 1, but whether that action will come in the form of a temporary payment "patch" or a permanent "fix" remains a guessing game, experts tell Part B News.

You and your peers are letting cash drain from your pockets by incorrectly billing prolonged services, which were denied between 20% and 33% of the time in 2008, according to a Part B News analysis of the latest CMS claims data. Practices are billing prolonged services more often, and carriers believe they're getting it wrong more often, with denial rates rising from 2006 to 2008, the data shows.

With less than 22 days until the 21.3% cut to your Medicare payments is set to take effect, stakeholder groups led by the AMA mounted a high-profile campaign to permanently resolve the problem. Experts earlier predicted that 2010 would be the year for a permanent "fix" to the sustainable growth rate formula (SGR, PBN 1/4/10) that's responsible for setting the cuts.

Part B News adaptation of "Threshold time for prolonged visit codes 99354 and/or 99355 billed with office/outpatient codes" from CMS Transmittal 1875 to the Medicare Claims Processing Manual.

Imaging-related specialties have seen their utilization for imaging services tumble between 2007 and 2008, continuing a rather uneven trend where orthopedic surgery alone sees noticeable utilization growth (PBN 3/30/09). NOTE: Diagnostic radiology, which has long been the top biller of imaging services, is not shown on this chart because it far outstrips these other specialties.

Can you give us some pointers for how to bill when the doctor is the attending physician for a hospice patient?