February 14, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O Next year will see the implementation of significant changes to E&M guidelines, reducing the emphasis on the history and exam components while highlighting medical decision making (M.D.M.). In our last audit tip on the E&M changes, we discussed…
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February 21, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O In the first three articles of this series, we explored how the 2021 E&M changes to office visits will affect each element of medical decision making (MDM): diagnoses, data, and the table of risk. In this article, we…
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May 22, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O NAMAS, like other professional organizations, has a network of compliance professionals who are diligently culling through the multiple interim final rules and daily barrage of e-mails about temporary relaxation of guidance for reporting provider services. This information has become nightly…
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July 17, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O By now everyone has heard that we will no longer have to score history and exam components to determine an E&M code level for the office/outpatient CPT codes 99202-99215, beginning January 1, 2021. Instead, we will use new methods for…
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September 18, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O One of my favorite bedtime stories, when I was younger, was Chicken Little. Part of the reason it is a favorite is because I remember my father’s voice and facial expressions when Chicken Little exclaimed “The sky is falling! The…
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November 6, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O Pumpkin spiced lattes are back at Starbucks, the days are getting shorter, there is a crispness in the air (in some parts of the country, anyway), and the 2021 ICD-10-CM guidelines have gone into effect. These are all signs we…
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December 11, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O There is a long-standing rule in our family that Christmas is not allowed to start until the Thanksgiving dinner dishes are washed and put away. I must be completely honest; that family rule has been thrown out the window this…
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February 12, 2021 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O A few weeks ago, NAMAS presented a webinar about 2021 time and prolonged services. The flood of participant questions made it very obvious there is still uncertainty about how to appropriately use time to select the level of office…
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July 9, 2021 | By Shannon DeConda, CPC, CEMC, CEMA, CPMA, CRTT After 6 months of speaking to the 2021 AMA guidelines, many of you may be tired of talking about the new documentation guidelines. But the other half of us are frustrated at still seeing documentation come through that represents the mandated…
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July 2, 2021 | By Pam Brooks, MHA, COC, CPC As an auditor, you might find that the “meat and potatoes” of the audit is the most interesting part. Then you finish and it is time to pull together your findings into an executive summary. The best and most effective executive summary design is…
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