Representatives from CMS and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) discussed hot topics and focus areas at HCCA's 2019 Compliance Institute in Boston, including developing interactive documentation checklists, potential changes to Stark Law this year, and methods to address the high rate of coding and documentation errors on inpatient rehabilitiation facility (IRF) claims.
CMS finalized changes to NCCI Medically Unlikely Edits (MUE) and procedure-to-procedure (PTP) edits in its quarterly update to NCCI edit files, effective April 1.
The April 2019 OPPS quarterly update reassigned specific skin substitute products from the low-cost group to the high-cost group, and clarified billing and reporting for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy procedures performed in the outpatient setting.
Q: We are considering using of ICD-10 code Z79.899 (Other long term (current) drug therapy) to support medical necessity for lab testing while a patient is having chemotherapy. What is considered long term where this code is concerned?
The AMA’s CPT Editorial Panel approved sweeping changes to documentation and code selection guidelines for evaluation and management codes. If finalized, the changes will shift the way practices select codes for both office and facility visits as soon as January 2021.
Q: We recently had a consultant recommend that we create evaluation and management (E/M) levels for our labor and delivery observation cases, similar to our emergency room levels. Does anyone do this? If so, would you be willing to share your criteria and logic used?
On January 29, NAHRI presented its first members-only quarterly call of the year, where members heard from revenue integrity experts on engaging clinical staff, chargemaster updates, and addressing denials at their root cause.
