Practice Management Alert

Consider nine criteria when you sit down with your case files.If you don't know quite where to begin when you perform your first self-audit, keep this handy reference as a guide to remind you what types of questions you should be asking yourself. For each chart, make sure you can answer the following questions and you'll know you've done a thorough job: Does the documentation support the level of service billed? Does the documentation support the CPT® and/or HCPCS codes billed? If the physician coded a consult, does documentation of a request from a third party exist in the chart? Does the chart contain a written consult report back to the third party? Did the physician use modifiers correctly? Does the documentation support the ICD-9 codes the practice reported? Did the physicians sign and date all entries? Is the chart legible? Is the name and identification number of the patient [...]