In July, Utah pain doctor Jahan Imani, MD, and Intermountain Medical Management, P.C., entered into a nearly $400,000 settlement with the OIG to resolve allegations that Imani’s practice submitted false or fraudulent claims due to improper modifier use for payment by improperly using modifier -59 with HCPCS code G0431.
Section 216(a) of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA) added a requirement that will dramatically revise the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) effective January 1, 2018.
Root cause analysis of edits and an understanding of the relationship between the chargemaster and HIM/coding must be supported by overarching principles and best practices for edit management. Processes should be built around the timing of edits, applying edits across payers, and denial management.
The 2018 update to the ICD-10-CM code set went into effect October 1, 2017, and features 728 total code changes, including 360 new, 142 deleted, and 226 revised codes.
The new ICD-10-CM codes for FY 2018, effective October 1, represent significant changes in our documentation and coding practices. Let’s discuss some of these new codes and their potential impact upon your diagnostic decision-making and documentation.
