The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has unveiled a series of Medicare payment rules that will dramatically impact Medicare payments for 2025. These changes encompass payment rates, coding guidelines, coverage criteria, and quality measures for various healthcare providers. Physicians, in particular, face a proposed average payment rate cut of 2.93% under the fee […]
2024 CPT Coding updates: Take a look at the updates in CPT coding and guidelines for professional services. Every year, on January 1st, updated CPT® codes and coding guidelines emerge, introducing new, revised, and eliminated codes. For instance, in CPT® 2024, there are 230 new codes, 70 revised ones, and 49 removed codes. Notably, no […]
It is expected that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will release a completely revamped version of the evaluation and management (E&M) codes by 2021, particularly for the office visit codes (999201-99205 and 99211-99215). In addition to the changes to the office visit codes, there were significant changes to the 2023 guidelines. These […]
You won’t find these codes in your 2023 code books, but they are effective April 1. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released coding changes and policy updates for the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS). The updates include the addition of many new HCPCS Level II codes, the deletion of a few […]
On November 2, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued CY 2023 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule (Final Rule), implementing certain updates and policy changes for Medicare payments under the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) and changes to the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), effective on or after January 1, 2023. The final […]
Severe maternal morbidity often intersects with cesarean deliveries. Reducing the number of cesarean deliveries can lower the maternal mortality rate, and one of the drivers of cesarean rates is thought to be induction of labor (IOL). In 2014, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) adopted definitions for labor, labor induction, and augmentation of […]
Without detailed documentation, providers may face an uphill battle in defending themselves from quality audits and even malpractice issues. Up until 2021, at least for the prior two decades, coders and clinicians relied upon the established Evaluation and Management (E&M) guidelines to determine which E&M code was appropriate for each specific encounter. The 1995 guidelines […]