Podiatry Coding & Billing Alert

Question: I bill post-op visits with CPT code 99024 and charge $0. Sometimes it goes through, but today I had a status message that BCBS rejected my claim with three services of post-op visits stating: "at least one line item charge amount must be > than zero." I should not be charging anything for the post-op visits, so what do I do?

Washington Subscriber

Answer: Don't bother billing out the zero dollar post op services. You should delete the claims and not worry about the rejected claims since Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) obviously is not interested in tracking them. Most payers won't care that you are doing follow-up or post-op care if you're not charging them.

Suggestion: You should obviously have documentation in the patient's medical record of any post-op visit. You may also want to post the charge to your system for internal audit and tracking purposes. However, you should then be able to opt to not send any claims for zero-charge services. You may want to find out from your software vendor whether you can set your practice management software to not create a claim if the charges are $0.

Money saver: If you are paying your clearinghouse by the claim, you are really wasting your money as well. Set up an agreement with your clearinghouse that they will not bill out -- or charge you for -- zero dollar claims.