But look to forthcoming home health rule for Special Focus Program details. Get ready for life to get harder, thanks to Medicare’s continued crackdown on hospice fraud and abuse issues. Background: In recent years, everyone from federal watchdog agencies to [...]
Question: Our new patient was admitted to home health following explantation of his infected left hip prosthesis. He’s on IV Vancomycin to treat the infection. We have orders for skilled nursing to administer the IV antibiotics for three weeks, perform lab [...]
Follow this guide to find out what each flag really means. You have seen plenty of ICD-9 to ICD-10 bridges online, but beware: these bridges are based on GEMs, which are only about 50-percent accurate. If you rely solely on [...]
t post-revision to his hip replacement. He has a wound infection with bacteremia and methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, but it's questionable whether the infection is related to his surgery. I am planning to list the following codes, but I'm not sure [...]
Question: Our patient was on our service before for aftercare of a total hip replacement (THR). He was discharged after appropriate care. He was readmitted to the hospital with complications of the THR. The joint was removed, and our services [...]
Question: We have a patient who had a joint replacement some time ago. He was referred to our agency with an infected knee replacement (MRSA) to receive IV antibiotics for five weeks. The patient says that the doctor will do [...]
In addition to relative value units (RVUs), which are the basis for calculating Medicare payments for physicians, the annual CMS Physician Fee Schedule contains valuable direction for coders. Pathology practices can glean much information from the Fee Schedule , including [...]
With more than a quarter of a million total hip replacements performed each year, coding for them should be a no-brainer, right? Wrong. If youre automatically coding 27130 for a total hip replacement when you read those words on the [...]
