/*--> */ In its continuing quest to halt ICD-10 implementation, the AMA is touting a new study by Nachimson Advisors that shows much higher costs to physician practices than initially estimated in...
Inpatient coders will have a new coding system on October 1, but they won’t have to learn new MS-DRGs. They aren’t changing. However, coders will see some shift in MS-DRG assignment in ICD-10. Donna M. Smith, RHIA, and Lori P. Jayne, RHIA, reveal why the MS-DRG shifts will occur.
ICD-10-PCS defines devices for coding purposes in a very specific way. Shannon E. McCall, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CPC, CPC-I, CEMC, CCDS, and Mark Dominesey, RN, BSN, MBA, CCDS, CDIP, CHTS-CP, explain how to assign the correct device character in ICD-10-PCS.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is delaying the launch of ICD-11 until 2017. The WHO did not formally announce a delay, but its website now lists ICD-11 as due by 2017.
Is this love that I’m feeling? Or do I have some deadly disease? What are my symptoms? Well, I feel lightheaded and dizzy. It could be the signs of new love or it could be acute mountain sickness...
There before me was a pale horse and its rider was named Reimbursement. Meet the final horseman of the ICD-10 Apocalypse and probably the one that keeps your C-suite up at night: Reimbursement. The...
In part two of a series, Shelley C. Safian, PhD, CCS-P, CPC-H, CPC-I, explains how to identify various types of viral skin infections and how reporting for them will change in ICD-10-CM.
While the digestive and integumentary sections had extensive edits in the latest CPT ® update, many sections were left relatively unchanged. Joanne Schade-Boyce, BSDH, MS, CPC, ACS , and Denise Williams, RN, CPC-H, review which sections only had minor updates and take a closer look at evaluation and management and chemodenervation changes in the 2014 CPT Manual.
Jugna Shah, MPH, and Valerie A. Rinkle, MPA, examine the 2014 OPPS Final Rule and explain which services are now packaged, including drugs and biological that function as supplies when used in diagnostic or surgical procedures, clinical diagnostic lab tests, and device removal procedures.
Q: I have a question regarding CPT® code 22558 (arthrodesis, anterior interbody technique, including minimal discectomy to prepare interspace; lumbar). I perform this exposure as a vascular surgeon, with the orthopedic surgeon preforming the spinal surgery. If I perform an anterior exposure for a spine deformity using code 22808 (arthrodesis, anterior, for spinal deformity, with or without cast; two to three vertebral segments), do I bill 22558 for the exposure?
CMS will present the eHealth Summit: Road to ICD-10 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Friday, February 14, in Baltimore and is inviting interested parties who cannot attend in person to register for a live webcast of the sessions .
It turns out that Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow, and thereby forecasting six more weeks of winter, wasn’t the most painful part of Groundhog Day. Phil picked a bad moment to suffer from stage...
In this month’s issue, we examine factors that affect principal diagnosis selection, explain when you should report an unspecified code, discuss how MS-DRGs may shift in ICD-10, and provide sample physician queries for ICD-10. In his Clinically Speaking column, Robert S. Gold, MD, discusses the intent of neonatal codes.
The U.S. healthcare system is and will continue to be dependent on clinical codes and is thus equally dependent on accurate and complete clinical documentation. This relationship then makes documentation and coding truly dependent upon each other; without one you don’t have the other. It sounds plain and simple, but of course it is not.
In addition to increased packaging and collapsing of E/M clinic visit level CPT ® codes in the 2014 OPPS -Final Rule, CMS made additional changes that will have an immediate impact on reimbursement or require operational changes for providers.
One of the most radical changes CMS proposed in this year’s OPPS was to collapse the five levels of E/M CPT ® codes and replace them with three new HCPCS G-codes, including one APC for all clinic visits, one for all Type A ED visits, and one for all Type B ED visits.
In the 2014 OPPS Final Rule, CMS offered the following -example for billing a laboratory test on the same date of service as the primary service, but ordered for a different purpose than the primary service by a practitioner different than the practitioner who ordered the primary service.
