Practice Management Alert

Proper use of physician's NPI could get you paid in full. With the current economic climate and physicians stretched to their max, many practices are turning to qualified nonphysician practitioners (NPPs) to see more patients. But if you don't know how to properly -- and compliantly -- bill these incident-to services, you could be bringing in just 85 percent payment for a service or even setting your practice up for fraud scrutiny. How it works: When an NPP provides a service to a Medicare patient incident-to the physician, you can report the service under the physician's national provider identifier (NPI) as long as all of the Medicare rules for incident-to services are followed. Doing so will net 100 percent pay for the service. When you bill for the NPP's service under her own NPI, however, you'll receive 85 percent of the full rate. Be on the lookout for incident-to billing opportunities and [...]