Don't forget you can still get 85 percent reimbursement if you don't meet incident-to criteria. As practices try to battle falling income, many are striving to maximize the urologists' time and supplement services using non-physician practitioners (NPPs). If you know the incident-to billing rules, you will ensure a 100 percent reimbursement for those services. But if you're not careful, you'll set yourself up for denials and potentially fraud accusations. Follow three expert tips to ensure your Medicare incident-to billing brings in extra reimbursement while still staying legal and compliant. Watch Out for New Patients and New Problems You can bill "incident to" only when the NPP treats an established Medicare patient who has been seen initially by the urologist who has established a particular plan of care (POC) for this individual patient. The POC must also be the reason for the encounter. If the NPP addresses a new problem during the visit or if the physician has not previously established a care plan for the patient, then you cannot bill the service as incident to. Your urologist should also document in the POC that the patient will be followed by an NPP to monitor the response to the planned therapy. You might encounter this follow up visit by a NPP for urinary tract infections, incontinence, cancer diagnoses, or other medical conditions. Watch out: "If the desire is to bill the service under the MD and the patient is new, only the review of systems (ROS) and past, family, and social history (PFSH) portion of the encounter can be recorded by the NPP" says Suzan Berman, CPC, CEMC, CEDC, senior manager of coding education and documentation compliance with UPMC in Pittsburgh, Penn.. "The physician would need to reference this in his/her note." Important: Ensure Proper Supervision Before Billing One of the first things you should check before you bill a service incident-to is whether a urologist or other physician was directly supervising the NPP. In other words, the provider whose national provider identifier (NPI) you'll be billing under should be supervising the service. Define direct supervision: Key: "Under Medicare's ruling, 'incident to' can only be met if the MD is in the office," Berman confirms. "If a mid-level provider (MLP) is in the office, the service could be billed 'incident to' him/her if the service is done by someone with a 'lesser' license. For example, an MLP can supervise an RN (registered nurse) or MA (medical assistant)." Example: If, during the same encounter with the NP and the patient, the urologist was five miles away at the hospital seeing patients, you would not be able to bill that E/M service incident-to the urologist. Tip: Switch to NPP's NPI When Necessary If you find the service does not meet incident-to billing requirements -- for example, if the NPP sees a new patient -- you don't have to forego payment altogether in many cases. If a Medicare credentialed NPP provides the service, you can bill under his own NPI. In that case, you'll usually receive between 65 and 85 percent of the normal global fee found in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, depending on the type of NPP, Young says. Exception: Example: "The MA should certainly provide the care in emergent case (as long as it is within their scope of practice)," Berman says. "It just wouldn't be billable" because there is no direct supervision by a physician. Important: