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How to Combat COVID-Related Risk Adjustment Losses with the Medicare Annual Wellness Exam
April 12th, 2021 - Aimee Wilcox, CPMA, CCS-P, CST, MA, MT, Director of Content

Identifying new ways to encourage Medicare beneficiaries to schedule and attend their Annual Wellness Exam (AWE) can be difficult, but the Open Enrollment period is a prime time for every payer to identify new beneficiaries and provide a reminder to both new and existing patients that this preventive service does ...

Failure to Follow Payer’s Clinical Staff Rules Costs Provider $273K
April 12th, 2021 - Wyn Staheli, Director of Research

Clinical staff (e.g., LPN, RN, MA) provide essential services which allow providers to leverage their time and improve reimbursement opportunities and run their practices more efficiently. There is, however, an ongoing question of how to appropriately bill for clinical staff time. This is really a complex question which comes down to code descriptions, federal or state licensure, AND payer policies. Failure to understand licensing and payer policies led a Connecticut provider organization down a path that ended in a $273,000 settlement with both federal and state governments.

Properly Reporting Imaging Overreads (Including X-Rays)
April 8th, 2021 - Aimee Wilcox CPMA, CCS-P, CST, MA, MT and Wyn Staheli, Director of Content Research

hile many provider groups offer some imaging services in their offices, others may rely on external imaging centers. When the provider reviews images performed by an external source (e.g., independent imaging center), that is typically referred to as an overread or a re-read. Properly reporting that work depends on a variety of factors as discussed in this article.

How Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Data Enhances Risk Adjustment
March 31st, 2021 - Aimee Wilcox, CPMA, CCS-P, CST, MA, MT, Director of Content

The role of SDOH in overall patient care and outcomes has become a more common topic of discussion among healthcare providers, payers, and policymakers alike. All are attempting to identify and collect SDOH and correlate the data to patient management which is increasingly seen as necessary to address certain health disparities and identify exactly how SDOH affects patient health outcomes. Learn how to address this important subject.

Understanding Skin Biopsy Codes
March 23rd, 2021 - Christine Woolstenhulme, QCC, QMCS, CPC, CMRS

A biopsy is a procedure to obtain only a portion of a lesion for a pathologic exam. According to the AMA, "The use of a biopsy procedure code (e.g., 11102, 11103) indicates that the procedure to obtain tissue for pathologic examination was performed independently, or was unrelated or distinct from other ...