Practice Management Alert

Good news: You'll have more room for diagnosis coding

While adjusting to change can be stressful, the UB-04 offers many benefits. You can look forward to:

- Some things staying the same. Many of the data locations have changed, but most of the data usage descriptions and allowable data values have not changed, Landry says.

- More room. After field locator 56, which provides space for the new NPI, the most noticeable change on the UB-04 is the expansion of the diagnosis code field (67) to accept 18 ICD-9 codes. That gives you room to report up to eight additional diagnosis codes. Field locator 67 should contain the ICD-9 code for the disease condition that most accurately reflects the main reason the patient is being treated, said Glenda J. Schuler, RHIT, CPC, CPC-H, while speaking at the November 2006 Ingenix Essentials conference in Orlando, Fla.

- Fewer forms. The UB-04 will answer the needs of many health insurers, so you can use it for more payers. Hopefully this new form will eliminate the need for more claim forms, Landry says.

- Flexibility. The UB-04 can accept ICD-10 codes, so there won't be a need to transition to yet another new claim form when the migration to ICD-10 comes.