Oncology & Hematology Coding Alert

ASCO and CMS tackle your most common project queries

Demonstration-project coordinators heard your cries for help and responded with a set of answers to your -Frequently Asked Questions.-

CMS says it will post these FAQs on its Web site, but you may want to wait until they do so to consider the FAQs to be CMS-endorsed. You can also find them by searching for - -The 2006 Oncology Demonstration- FAQs- on your Web browser.

Here are the FAQ highlights:

- If your physician's primary specialty isn't oncology, she may have to change her specialty designation. For example, a doctor with a primary specialty of internal medicine and a secondary specialty of hematology/oncology should change her enrollment information to list oncology as the primary specialty.

- You can report the -G- codes in association with an E/M visit provided on an -incident-to- basis if it meets all the rules.

- Your -G- codes don't have to appear on the same claim form as the E/M visits they-re tied to, but it may help. They do have to be billed on the same date, however.

- When prostate cancer codes refer to -castration,- it means both surgical and medical.

- You don't need the patient's consent to participate in the project.