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Human trafficking victims: Know the signs and what to report

09/17/2018

Your practice should be up to speed on your obligations involving human trafficking. Odds are that you’ve probably treated a human trafficking victim— even if you didn’t realize it.

Signs that a patient may be a victim of human trafficking

09/17/2018

by: Marla Durben Hirsch

It’s often difficult to discern whether a patient is a victim of human trafficking. Check for these signs.

CCI edits bundle biopsy codes, revise prolonged service billing caps

09/17/2018

by: Richard Scott

Alert your billing staff to the latest Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) edits, which add 942 new code bundles mostly targeting surgical codes across a range of CPT and HCPCS families. Effective Oct. 1, the CCI version 24.3 update also brings nearly 150 revised medically unlikely edits (MUEs), which change established service-unit caps.

CCI version 24.3 scorecard: 942 new code pairs, 148 MUE revisions

09/17/2018

by: Richard Scott

The latest Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) edits, which take effect Oct. 1, contain 942 new code pairs that bundle a range of services across the CPT and HCPCS code sets. The CCI update also feature 45 newly placed caps on services under the medically unlikely edits (MUEs) section. Nearly 150 MUEs have been revised. Check out the CCI version 24.3 scorecard to find out which code families are affected.

Non-compete clauses may not bind; give the judge some leeway or lose all

09/17/2018

by: Roy Edroso

Q: We have non-compete clauses in our doctors’ contracts, saying when they leave us they can’t practice within a certain radius of our offices for a certain period of time. But lately I’ve been noticing legal cases in the paper where doctors have challenged their non-competes and judges have released them. What were those practices doing wrong and how can we avoid it?

4 tips to ease task of querying clinicians on coding matters

09/17/2018

by: Laura Evans

When you must approach your physician with a coding question, keep these four points in mind to ensure an efficient response with a minimum of fuss, advises a nationally known expert in clinical documentation improvement (CDI)/

MGMA comes out strong for delay in E/M changes, making AUC voluntary

09/17/2018

by: Roy Edroso

The 40,000-member Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) is asking CMS to rethink its reconfiguration of E/M coding and documentation for Medicare, adding to the growing pressure on the agency to pull back on the controversial proposal, as well as for other changes in the proposed 2019 Medicare physician fee schedule/Quality Payment Program (QPP) rule.

Prolonged codes for clinical staff go largely unused, face high denials

09/17/2018

by: Richard Scott

Most practices have been hesitant to tap into the prolonged service codes that are allowed when clinical staff spend extra time with a patient. Even as service utilization increased about 97% between 2016 and 2017, total claims remain scarce.

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