Audits are ramping up across the country, creating additional headaches for many healthcare organizations as they simultaneously struggle with the delta variant of COVID-19.
CMS has reinstated the short-stay reviews and high-weighted DRG reviews originally halted in 2019. The national contract to conduct these reviews was awarded to Livanta, one of the Beneficiary & Family-Centered Care and Quality Improvement Organizations.
A policy that UnitedHealthcare was poised to roll out that would have allowed it to retroactively deny ED claims isn’t moving forward yet. But that doesn’t mean case managers shouldn’t prepare for the payer, or others, to implement such policies.
Laura Evans, CPC, and Julia Kyles, CPC, break down potentially confusing updates to the 2021 E/M guidelines, including new definitions for technical terms and revised guidance for reporting diagnostic laboratory testing with interpretation.
Joe Rivet, Esq., CCS-P, CPC, CEMC, CPMA, CICA, CHRC, CHPC, CHEP, CHC, CICA, CAC, CACO, looks at the implications of a recent OIG brief on how Medicare Advantage organizations could use national provider identifiers (NPI) to monitor for fraud, waste, and abuse.
Facility E/M coding reflects the volume and intensity of resources utilized by the facility during patient encounters. Joe Rivet, Esq., CCS-P, CPC, CEMC, CHC, CCEP, CHRC, CHPC, CICA, CPMA, CAC, CACO, describes how facilities can create internal guidelines and point systems for determining E/M level section.
