Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Plus: CMS adds RVUs to immunization administration codes that reflect work preparing the vaccine.

As of Jan. 1, the Medicare deductible does not apply to the Welcome to Medicare exam, announced Amy Bassano, MA, with CMS in the presentation "Medicare Physician Payment Schedule 2009 Changes and Beyond" at the CPT and RBRVS 2009 Annual Symposium in Chicago. "This program aspect caused a lot of criticism," she said.

Now patients who come in for the required enrollment exam will not have the exam applied to meeting their deductible. Since this is the beneficiary's first charge, the exam became the patient's responsibility.

You can also forget struggling with reporting the Welcome to Medicare exam when your physician does not order an ECG. "We removed the EKG requirement," Bassano explains. This will be an educational service in which the physician may refer the patient for the diagnostic service if necessary.