Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

With the changes to consult coding, it will be more important than ever to report hospital visits properly. Practices across the country are abuzz with the news that Medicare stopped covering consultations effective Jan. 1, 2010 -- but there are a few things every coder should know before that deadline hits. Important: Although Medicare will no longer pay for consults (99241-99255), not all payers will necessarily follow suit. "The consult codes have not been removed from CPT -- the AMA still printed them in the 2010 manual," notes Barbara J. Cobuzzi, MBA, CPC, CENTC, CPC-H, CPC-P, CPC-I, CHCC, president of CRN Healthcare Solutions. "At this point, we don't know what other payers are going to do." Inpatient change: In the past, only the admitting physician reported initial hospital care codes (99221- 99223), and specialists who saw the patient separately often billed inpatient consult codes. With the no-pay policy on consult codes, CMS [...]