Thanks again for your help. I wanted to make sure it was allowable to make billed charges (for example) 10-20% higher than the CMS fee schedule amount without having documentation of why you charge that amount. For some reason I thought everyone had to calculate their own fee schedule based on overhead cost, malpractice cost, provider salary, etc. to substantiate their charges. But it makes me feel better that we can skip this calculation part and base our charges off of CMS's fee schedule amounts for our area. I greatly appreciate your help Mr. Murphy. So, if I understand correctly, a medical office can charge anything but insurance companies will only pay the lesser of the billed charge or what they stipulated in their contract. I feel much better now.
Best Regards,
Samantha A. Robbins, CPC