Pediatric Coding Alert

Payment assignments to these codes could signal the way for private payer fees. CMS offers several bits of good news in its recently-finalized 2013 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, including new transitional care management codes and associated payment--but the agency also included a 26.5 percent conversion factor cut that could impact practices across-the-board if Congress doesn’t act to reverse it before Jan. 1. On Nov. 1, CMS released its Final Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2013. The 1,362-page document, which was published in the Nov. 16 Federal Register, is applicable to your practice because many private payers base their fees on Medicare reimbursement amounts. Check These New Codes for Hospital Transitions If your pediatrician spends a significant amount of time providing care for patients transitioning back to the community following a hospital or nursing facility discharge, you could benefit from two new codes for these services in 2013: "We will pay [...]