Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert

The government’s CERT report not only identifies the types of errors that practices make—it also profiles which specialties had the highest Part B error rates. Keep in mind that the error rate for all providers is 10.5 percent, so we’ve listed all Part B specialties that had higher rates than that average, as follows: 

Specialty Error Rate

Chiropractic                                                           51.4%

Private practice occupational therapist                32.2%

Vascular surgery                                                  29.4%

Clinical laboratory                                                  24.4%

Psychiatry                                                             22.1%

Clinical social worker                                            21.6%

Private practice physical therapist                       18.7%

Pulmonary disease                                               18.1%

Clinical psychology                                               17.8%

General practice                                                    15.8%

Internal medicine                                                    15.3%

Critical care (intensivists)                                       15.0%

Infectious disease                                                  13.8%

Gastroenterology                                                   13.7%

Family practice                                                        13.7%

Independent diagnostic testing facility (IDTF)        13.6%

Neurology                                                               12.4%

Diagnostic radiology                                               12.3%

Physician assistant                                                12.1%

Cardiology                                                              11.8%

Obstetrics/gynecology                                           11.0%

Allergy/immunology                                                10.9%

Emergency medicine                                              10.9%

Among the specialists with the lowest error rates were CRNAs at 1.4 percent, dermatologists at 2.4 percent, and hematology/oncology at 3.6 percent.