Check back here regularly for the latest news about MedTrust, LLC and the everchanging medical billing rules and regulations.

No Embezzlement Concerns...but just in case

https://www.aapc.com/blog/41655-protect-your-physician-office-from-embezzlement/

OIG Looks In on Physician Home Visits - AAPC Knowledge Center LuAnn Jenkins, February 2017

CMS Updates Locum Tenens Policy - AAPC Knowledge Center  LuAnn Jenkins, August 2017

Letter to the Editor. Novemer 2013

AAPC Cutting Edge Magazine

LuAnn Jenkins

Modifier 24 Is Useful When Treating Underlying Problem “Related or Not? Pass the Modifier 24

Paternity Test” (August 2013, pages 24-25) did not fully explain the use of modifier 24 Unrelated evaluation and management service by the same physician or other qualified health care professional

during a postoperative period for the treatment of the underlying problem.

Medicare has defined postoperative care as related to recovery from the surgery, but treatment of the underlying problem is considered separately billable. Medicare considers pain control and wound care as postoperative care, along with any complication that doesn’t require a return to the operating room. The information below is provided on the Medicare administrative contractor (MAC) WPS® Medicare website (http://wpsmedicare.com/j8macpartb/resources/modifiers/modifier-24.shtml) to explain appropriate

use of modifier 24.

• Append modifier 24 to the evaluation and management (E/M) procedure code.

• Use on an unrelated E/M service beginning the day after a procedure, when the E/M is performed by the same physician* during the 10 or 90 day postoperative period.

• Use modifier 24 on the E/M if documentation indicates the service was exclusively for treatment of the underlying condition and not for postoperative care.

• Use modifier 24 on the E/M code when the same physician is managing immunosuppressant therapy during the postoperative period of a transplant.

• Use modifier 24 on the E/M code when the same physician* is managing chemotherapy during the postoperative period of a procedure.

When the same physician* provides unrelated critical care during the postoperative period

Same physican-Medicare regulation states: " Physicians in the same group pracitce who are in the same specialty must bill and be paid as though they were a single physician.” CPT® defines post-operative care as “routine follow up,” and considers complications to be outside that definition. As such, the information above pertains only to payers that follow the Medicare complication

rule.

LuAnn Jenkins, CPC, CPMA, CEMC, CFPC

Can We Bill for That?  June 22nd, 2011         LuAnn Jenkins, CPC, CPMA, CEMC, CFPC  http://news.aapc.com/index.php/2011/06/can-we-bill-for-that/

Identical Minor Surgical Procedures-Modifier 59 or Units?  September 28th, 2011

By LuAnn Jenkins, CPC, CPMA, CEMC, CFPC 

http://news.aapc.com/index.php/2011/09/identical-minor-surgical-procedures-modifier-59-or-units/

CMS vs. CPT®   May 1st, 2010

By LuAnn Jenkins, CPMA, CPC, CEMC, CFPC

http://news.aapc.com/index.php/2010/05/cms-vs-cpt/