Medical Coding Updates
Reducing your risk of inaccurate HCC coding and compliance issues begins with an efficient HCC auditing partner. An external HCC auditing consultant, like YES HIM Consulting, can conduct regular coding audits to identify issues before they are flagged.
The FY 2023 IPPS Proposed Rule draft was released on April 18th, and will be published in the May 10, 2022 Federal Register. Comments on the rule will be accepted until June 17, 2022, with the Final Rule expected in early August and implementation of all changes on October 1, 2022.
The year 2022 was a crucial year for the healthcare industry overall, as well as for the medical coding field. There was an abundant amount of coding updates released to report changes to telehealth services and COVID-19 treatments and tests.
As a result of the COVID-19 PHE, many new HCPCS/CPT and ICD-10-CM/PCS codes have been developed for reporting of testing, treatment, vaccination and diagnoses. The following is a comprehensive overview of the code changes from March 2020 through February 2022.
Designed to protect consumers from unanticipated medical bills when they unknowingly receive out-of-network health services, the No Surprises Act (NSA) was part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which took effect on January 1, 2022.
In anticipation of an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA, AMA has released provisional codes for the pediatric COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine for children aged 6 months up to 5 years of age.
The cost of inaccurate HCC medical coding is detrimental to an organization’s bottom line. Without a true assessment of the patient’s care, the hospital’s reimbursement is lower, leaving money on the table.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has issued a new code for administration of a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine for pediatric patients aged 5-11, 0073A.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has released new CPT code modifier 93 for audio-only telehealth services.
As our recent article on Telehealth indicated, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officially expanded its payment protocol to cover Medicare telehealth services in March of 2020. This meant that providers had greater flexibility in providing treatment and visits, with Medicare covering treatments that they previously would not have.