CODING UPDATE: Evaluation and Management Task Force Formed

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has assembled a new task force in an attempt to solve its longtime dilemma of reporting codes for facility evaluation and management (E/M) services in emergency rooms and clinics.
Seeking an independent expert panel to develop and recommend definitions and guidelines for these codes, CMS suggested that the American Health Information Management Association and the American Hospital Association join forces to head such a task force.
The group, which will include health information management professionals, physicians, and nurses, will be working within a very short time frame, because CMS would like to install the new E/M codes for use by Jan. 1, 2004.
Specifically, the task force will address issues raised by CMS in its proposed and final Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment System notice, which was published in November 2002.
 

- Published on 2003-03-01