CMS’ Hospital Outpatient Payment (HOP) panel made numerous recommendations at its annual meeting August 19 for the agency to consider ahead of the release of the 2020 OPPS final rule—with the panel and other stakeholders urging CMS to be more transparent with its responses and release of data.
Even if a hospital is not a teaching hospital, it may have services that require National Clinical Trial (NCT) reporting. It is logical for revenue integrity leadership to own this issue, but an explanation of the requirements for NCT reporting should be shared with all staff within the revenue cycle so there is a better appreciation of the fact that clinical trial billing rules apply more broadly than merely just to research or clinical trial studies.
Behavioral health is a highly specialized area of coding that many coders and billers are unfamiliar with. There are hundreds of ICD-10-CM codes for mental disorders with unique characters to specify symptoms and complications.
CMS released the 2020 OPPS proposed rule July 29, proposing to refine previous policies related to price transparency and the 2-midnight rule, while also asking for comments on how to potentially undo its policy that reduced payments for drugs purchased under the 340B drug discount program by nearly 30%.
CMS recently released two quarterly updates effective July 1: Medicare Claims Processing Transmittal 4313, which is the July update to the OPPS, and Medicare Claims Processing Transmittal 4314, which is the related July update to the Integrated Outpatient Code Editor (I/OCE) Specifications, Attachment B.
Before starting an ambulatory or outpatient CDI program, those tasked with the project must first create some universal definitions so everyone is on the same page and speaking the same language.
