Practice Management Alert

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No-Pay Consult Proposal Could Hit Practices Hard

Your revenue might go down, but your compliance will be up. If your practice relies on consultations for a good chunk of income, a new CMS proposal for 2010 could wreak havoc. In the July 13 Federal Register, CMS announced a proposal to eliminate payment for consultation codes starting on Jan. 1, 2010. The plan includes non-payment for all inpatient (99251-99255, Inpatient consultation for a new or established patient ...) and outpatient (99241-99245, Office consultation for a new or established patient ...) consultation codes. New way: Instead of reporting consult codes, you will report an initial hospital or an initial nursing home visit or a new or established patient office visit (E/M) code for these services. CMS has proposed plans to increase payments for these codes and other existing E/M codes. This change would "result in a net decrease in allowed charges of approximately $1 billion," noted CMS' Whitney May [...]
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