Using surgery modifiers to accurately represent the role of assistant surgeons has become increasingly important over the past three decades. Initially, a simple mention of the assistant surgeon’s name in the operative note header sufficed. However, as the healthcare landscape evolved, payers began demanding more granular details about the assistant surgeon’s role and contributions to […]
Using this technology to create the discharge summary is that the output is only as good as the input. A physician advisor once had a terribly unfortunate incident in which a pregnant patient died. This initiated a mandatory investigation by the Ohio Department of Health (ODH). This was one of those imperfect storms in which […]
KEY TAKEAWAYS Denials rose to 11% of all claims last year, up nearly 8% from 2021. Revenue cycle leaders should place their focus on clinical validation denials to help ease the overall denials burden. A key defensive strategy for preventing denials is provider education. Revenue cycle leaders need to understand that clinical validation denials are […]
Throughout the years in the health information management field, we’ve always been deeply interested in clinical coding and even find clinical coding to be fun. With that comes learning about the annual coding changes: new, revised and deleted codes. That brings us to the ICD-10-CM/PCS Coordination and Maintenance (C&M) Committee, how they work and the […]
In anticipation of an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American Medical Association (AMA) has created Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes for AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. AMA assigned Category 1 CPT code 91302 to the vaccine manufactured by the Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) company, as well as vaccine administration CPT codes […]
Good news for physicians tired of counting bullet points to assign an evaluation and management (E/M) level for an outpatient office visit: Per new AMA guidelines, it’s going to be a whole lot simpler. As of January 1, 2021, physicians will select an E/M code based on total time spent on the date of […]
The World Health Organization (WHO) updates ICD codes every 10 years to improve clinical use and acknowledge innovations in healthcare. After the tumultuous transition to the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases, simply mentioning the phrase “ICD-11” is liable to strike fear in the hearts of revenue cycle professionals and healthcare providers across […]
One billion dollars is a big number, but more astounding to me, as it pertains to a recent finding by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG), was that hospitals were found to have incorrectly documented and/or coded severe malnutrition 86.5 percent of the time (173/200)! That’s […]
As with last week, RACmonitor asked Dr. Ronald Hirsch, vice president of R1 RCM, to summarize the most pertinent regulatory changes recently arising. The following is a transcript of his reporting today on Monitor Mondays. “First, thank you, everyone, for continuing to care for patients and continuing to take this pandemic seriously,” Dr. Ronald Hirsch […]
Value based payment models are undoubtedly the future of health care. The number of commercial and governmental ACO contracts alone increased by an average of 63% annually from Q1 2011 to Q1 2018, according to a Muhlestein et al. analysis of Leavitt Partners’ data. Though commercial payers have been slower to adopt other models that […]