June 19, 2020 | By Grant Huang, CPC, CPMA The hype surrounding next year’s implementation of new guidelines for documenting and coding Evaluation & Management (E&M) services has revolved around the virtual elimination of the history and physical exam as key components of code selection. But some of the lesser-known changes involving…
May 29, 2020 | by Anna McGregor, CLP, CPC, CPCO, CPMA, CEMC, CEMA | Director for Coding Integrity, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center/School of Medicine Like a sandstorm, CMS has clouded our coding world in chaos, leaving us to ponder whether all these new flexibilities will become the new standard. Leading up…
February 28, 2020 | By Daniel F. Shay, Esq. Facing the mounting pressure of demographics, the Medicare system looks to slow the outflow of money however it can. One of the chief targets of these efforts is the process by which providers obtain Medicare billing privileges (“enrollment”). Without being enrolled in Medicare, a provider…
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…
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…
February 7, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O Previously we explored the 2021 changes that effect how diagnoses will be scored. Today we will dive into the changes to the data element of MDM. We know the year 2021 will bring significant changes to how we…
January 31, 2020 | By Pam Vanderbilt, CPC, CPMA, CPPM, CPC-I, CEMC, CEMA, CEMA-O The year 2021 will bring significant changes to how we determine the level of evaluation and management services in the outpatient setting. We will no longer score history and exam elements, instead focusing on medical decision making or…