Steer Your Incident To Coding Using These 2 Questions
Published on Tue Mar 24, 2009
100 percent pay is possible if NPP follows physician's plan of care. If you do not consider billing "incident to" the physician when a qualified nonphysician practitioner (NPP) performs services for Medicare patients, you are letting deserved reimbursement fly out the door. Bottom line: When you bill incident to, you garner 15 percent more per service than if you bill under the NPP's national provider identifier (NPI). But you do have to watch out for Medicare's strict incident to coding rules.Part of the Office of the Inspector General's 2009 work plan includes an examination of the qualifications of nonphysician staff who perform incident to services. To ensure that all your incident to claims are on target, answer these questions before billing: 1. Has The Pulmonologist Established Plan of Care? To qualify for incident to billing, the pulmonologist must see the Medicare patient during the initial visit and establish a clear [...]
