You’ll find a new billing opportunity for the work your providers conduct behind the scenes in 2017, as CMS proposes to activate two CPT codes — 99358 and 99359 — that pay for non-face-to-face prolonged services, according to the proposed 2017 Medicare physician fee schedule.

Make the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program (MDPP) laid out in the proposed 2017 Medicare physician fee schedule a win for your practice from a care and a financial perspective by leveraging efficiencies.

It’s summer vacation time, so make sure your vacating providers are properly covered by locum tenens — whether they’re called that or not.

Watch out for an inconsistency in Medicare and private payer billing policies that affects your practice’s shoulder coding.

Question: My ENT physician has been providing flexible fiberoptic endoscopic examination of swallowing (FFEES) studies at a facility, mostly billing FFEES code 92616, and she has been doing the interpretation and report. Many of the patients are in an inpatient stay, and Medicare has not been reimbursing her for code 92616 because of place of service 21 (inpatient hospital). Can she just report the flexible laryngoscopy code 31575 used in providing the swallow study, since she does bring her own scope?

Family practice, internal medicine and hematology/oncology providers are among 22 specialty groups that can look forward to an increase in allowed Medicare charges in 2017, while 14 groups will sustain payment cuts, according to the proposed 2017 Medicare physician fee schedule.

CMS is rolling out a service for pre-diabetic patients that you might want to consider as a case partner – or even as a service to take on board at your own practice.