Month: March 2018

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is piloting a bundled payment program with 64 surgeons at seven health systems in the state. Here are the four highlights. BCBSM aims to shave 10 percent off the average cost of non-complicated knee or joint replacements, which can total between $28,000 and $55,000, through the bundled program. The […]

Key: Amount of time spent with the patient indicates which code to use. Coding for physician inpatient services, especially critical care, is deceptively straightforward. The reality is that the details of each code requirement can complicate things to the point of complete confusion. Despite the challenges, there are specific strategies you can use to correctly […]

Beth Morgan, president and CEO of Medical Bill Consultants, has over 40 years of experience coding and billing for various providers and facilities. She provided these three tips: Read the notes carefully. If coders and billers don’t read notes carefully, they might miss a key component that the provider also missed. For example, if the […]

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015, requires us to remove Social Security Numbers (SSNs) from all Medicare cards by April 2019. A new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) will replace the SSN-based Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) on the new Medicare cards for Medicare transactions like billing, eligibility status, and claim status. The […]