You must furnish to your Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) as part of the enrollment process every CPT code for advanced imaging your providers bill, a change that hits in 2012 thanks to the advanced imaging accreditation rule. You would also need to enter every type of scanning modality (e.g., CT of sinuses and CT of abdomen are two separate modalities that must be entered separately) you use.

You are allowed to bill an E/M visit in the same encounter as the new annual wellness visit (AWV) when you can prove medical necessity. CMS has softened its threat to prohibit this, Part B News has learned. The key: To bill the E/M with the AWV, append modifier 25 (significant, separately identifiable E/M, same physician/same day) to the E/M code and be able to show that clinical circumstances warrant this in your documentation, CMS says.
 

Sending a little extra documentation to your Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) may help you avoid Medicare denials when it comes to billing dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans, more frequently than Medicare usually allows, in cases that are medically justified.

Keep an eye on your local Blue Cross Blue Shield plan. The national class action settlement the Blues agreed to in 2007 expires May 31. That means that Blue Cross plans may not be as physician-friendly as they had been for the past four years.

This chart shows the results of a comprehensive salary survey conducted at the end of 2010 by Medical Practice Coding Pro, published by DecisionHealth. The top-paid job was compliance officer, which averaged $79,227 in 2010, a figure that shocked the practice manager of a 12-provider family practice in Lancaster, Ohio. “Wow, that is high,” she says. “I’ll just have to ask for a raise.” But the billing manager of a six-provider urology practice in Seattle wasn’t surprised by the salary.

This week’s question is answered by Regan Bode, CPC, CPC-H, CPMA, CEMC, ACS-EM, content manager for DecisionHealth and consultant for DecisionHealth Professional Services.

Having non-physician practitioners (NPP) conduct the newly required face-to-face visits for the initial certification of home health services may save your practice time and money.  
“I don’t know why a physician wouldn’t have a [NPP] do the visit,” said Ann Rambusch, who heads her own home health consulting firm in Round Rock, Texas. “It frees up the physician’s time.”
 

You will see automatic denials when your non-physician practitioners (NPPs) serve as either the attending or consulting provider for a patient who’s been admitted, experts tell NPP Report. Both the attending and consulting NPP will erroneously receive denials, which must be appealed in order for any money to be recovered.