ICD-10 has brought us I10 (essential [primary] hypertension). Some of us thought "That's a relief," while some of us thought "That's a travesty." I am one of the latter.
Few in the healthcare industry would argue that the way the government currently pays for drugs is the most cost-effective, efficient, and equitable method possible.
Last year, as ICD-10 implementation approached, organizations throughout the U.S. reported varying levels of comfort with regard to readiness and understanding of the impact of ICD-10 on physician workflow. For some, it was business as usual. For other physicians, ICD-10 became one more check box on the list of reasons to leave practice.
CMS proposed an extensive five-year, two-phase plan to overhaul Part B drug payments for physicians and hospitals in March outside of the normal OPPS rulemaking cycle that could be implemented as early as this fall.
Q: Our providers are reluctant to document a correlation between symptoms and a true diagnosis. Do you have any good ways to get them to do this? For example, our providers document "diabetes" but they often don't include additional details that should be there (e.g., gestational diabetes or type II diabetes mellitus in pregnancy).
Lori-Lynne A. Webb, CPC, CCS-P, CCP, CHDA, COBGC, CDIP, writes about terminology coders will encounter in documentation for Pap tests and other cervical cancer screening report
Jugna Shah, MPH, looks at CMS’ new proposal to implement a new drug payment model for certain providers and how they can comment in order to the agency about its impact on their facilities.
CMS allows, and sometimes requires, providers to report certain modifiers in order to identify when a service has been provided by different types of therapists. Review the requirements for reporting modifiers –GN, -GO, -GP, and –KX.
CMS released a list of the thousands of new ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes set to be activated October 1, 2016, as part of the 2017 IPPS proposed rule.
