Part B News | Benchmark of the Week

Coming cataract fees on track to drain millions from payment stream

08/26/2019

Practices are expecting to take a hit on cataract surgery fees in 2020 based on pay rates announced in the proposed 2020 Medicare physician fee schedule, and that could lead to a drain of hundreds of millions of dollars nationally.

Money in motion: The top 10 winners and losers from 2020 proposed rates

08/12/2019

by: Richard Scott

Cue the drum roll: After analyzing the numbers and poring over the inputs, a Part B News analysis turned up some big winners and unfortunate losers from the proposed 2020 Medicare physician fee schedule.

Specialty impact of PFS is pretty mild — but pity the eye doctors

08/05/2019

by: Roy Edroso

Readers of the 2020 proposed Medicare physician fee schedule (PFS) are probably trying to figure out how the new E/M rules will affect their reimbursement. But CMS has already looked at last year's volume and mix of services provided by each provider specialty and assessed the effect of the proposed fee schedule on them.

Blocked: Cerumen-removal revenue falls despite gains in 69209 claims

07/29/2019

by: Richard Scott

Practices are seeing a downward trend in revenue for cerumen-removal services even as the total number of claims was buoyed in recent years with the arrival of CPT code 69209 (Removal impacted cerumen using irrigation/lavage, unilateral).

New ASP drug price update shows unusual 14% overall jump

07/22/2019

by: Roy Edroso

The recent discussion of ways to hold down drug pricing is needed, as you can see by the latest quarterly average sales price (ASP) update issued by CMS. The ASP update shows the upper limit on prices to which providers will be allowed to add a surcharge of 6% in the 3rd quarter of 2019.

Practices reap millions on most-billed diagnostic panels; watch the outliers

07/15/2019

by: Richard Scott

Practices that run diagnostic tests and independent labs fared pretty well with a range of panels associated with millions of dollars in revenue in recent years. But a few tests, including vitamin D and hemoglobin assays, continue to perplex the billing department.

NPs and PAs get more work and, with the right codes, lower denial rates

07/08/2019

by: Roy Edroso

MedPAC may be right that the use of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) under incident-to billing is masking the size of their contribution to care. It’s clear that even when billing under their own specialty codes, these top mid-levels are billing more than before, according to 2017 Medicare claims data, the most recent available. Overall denial rates are not great, but when you put them to work on the right service they do very well.

Prior authorizations causing many patients to abandon the plan of care, survey shows

07/01/2019

by: Richard Scott

The regulatory burden linked to prior authorizations is getting worse, and it’s not only causing administrative headaches. It’s also leading to patients veering from the recommended course of treatment.

Big operations (total knee, shoulder) do well with 22, but what’s with the heat lamp?

06/24/2019

by: Roy Edroso

Modifier 22 (Increased procedural services) doesn't get claimed a lot. But on some of procedures for which it’s most often used — the ones for which you can easily see how extra work would be required — it has low denial rates. And there are some codes with 22 for which you have to wonder what the billers were thinking.

Hip X-rays remain most common extremity test but MRIs take top dollar

06/17/2019

by: Richard Scott

Providers report several million claims for hip, foot and shoulder X-rays every year but those services don’t pay out the most.

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