February 19, 2021 | By David Carpenter Critical care billing is relatively simple. Documentation requires three items – The patient is critically ill. What the provider is doing to treat or prevent organ system failure or compromise. How much time the provider spent providing critical care. While critical care billing is relatively simple,…
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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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February 5, 2021 | By Paul Spencer, CPC, COC As coders, auditors, and practitioners, we now find ourselves one month into the new world of outpatient evaluation and management (E/M) services. By now, certain patterns are hopefully beginning to emerge with regard to providers’ E/M documentation. As templates change and providers make the choice…
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January 29, 2021 | By Scott Kraft, CPMA, CPC One of the big changes in the new E/M Documentation Guidelines for 2021 for office and outpatient service codes 99202-99215 is the new high-risk category of “Decision Regarding Hospitalization.” As an auditor, the first thing I thought about were the situations in which a very…
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January 22, 2021 | By Sean M. Weiss, CHC, CMCO, CEMA, CPMA, CPC-P, CMPE, CPC Welcome to 2021, “y’all” – as we say down yonder in the beautiful South! Let me begin by making it clear that the issues discussed in this article are not specific to any particular commercial or federal healthcare payer…
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