Hospitals support the CMS' proposed changes to medical billing coding and new payments for opioid treatment programs, but they're worried that changes to quality measures could hurt providers.

The American Hospital Association (AHA) questioned the legality of site-neutral and 340B payment policies in the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS), arguing the proposals would “have a chilling effect on beneficiary access to care while also increasing regulatory burden.”

After two years of following a doctor around the office as a medical assistant, Raina Diaz was ready for a change.

“I wanted to be part of the back end of the medical field,” says Diaz, 47, of St. Petersburg, Florida. She enrolled at her local state college, where she learned that becoming a medical coder could...

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Make sure your practice’s medical coding for preventive screening mammograms is up to date with current guidelines. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has caught up to the industry and now recognizes the...

Confusion persists for the coding of vaping. The issue of vaping continues to generate national and international headlines. On Sept. 18, a teen from London, Ontario in Canada suffered a severe case of pulmonary illness after using e-cigarettes daily. This marked the first reported case in Canada. In the U.S., the numbers have grown to...

The Noridian iron infusion Local Coverage Determination (LCD) is important for just about everyone since Noridian is the Supplemental Medical Review Contractor (SMRC). Noridian could end up reviewing and denying your claims even if you’re not in Noridian’s Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) jurisdiction.

Q: Is reporting of Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes 99218-99220 restricted to a single physician?

A:  According to CPT guidelines, only the physician or non-physician practitioner (NPP) placing the patient in observation status (and subsequently discharging the patient) may report the appropriate initial observation code (99218, 99219, 99220)...

Artificial intelligence. The tech industry is just so enthusiastic for it and with good reason. As if the ability to process immense amounts of data wasn’t already good enough, the ability of AI to use this data and to learn from it in order to make subsequent interactions is nothing short of amazing.