Anesthesia Coding Alert

Plus: Contractors are also auditing place of service, bilateral services, and consolidated billing.Your practice may have grown accustomed to the presence of Medicare's recovery audit contractors (RACs), but it can still be hard to follow the issues that the RACs investigate. Two RAC regions recently posted focus areas every anesthesia provider needs to know. Check out what they're seeking and how you can avoid the auditors' crosshairs.Check Diagnosis With Transforaminal Epidural Region C RAC Connolly will be reviewing claims for "transformational epidural injections." This appears to be a spelling error, with the RAC referencing articles about transforaminal epidural injections (rather than "transformational").The RAC notes that "claims have been identified where the first-listed and/or other diagnosis codes do not match to the covered diagnosis codes in the LCD policies." The Medicare contractor has an LCD (local coverage determination) with specific ICD-9 codes that support medical necessity for the injections. The RAC [...]