I have been told by our biller several years ago that any imaging we bill for should have only the diagnosis(es) that were used to order the imaging. I've found a relatively common thing where our Medical Assistants will use multiple diagnoses when they order a cervical spine MRI and 2-view cervical spine X-rays, such as M54.2 and M54.12, as well as similarly for the lumbar spine. Is this common practice? This seems completely unnecessary to do, in my opinion. Has anybody else seen this in any practices you have worked for?
For instance, this is what our orders look like on an E/M documentation when ordered from the same date of service. (Please ignore the fact that both X-rays and MRIs for the same area are ordered. I have already inquired here on the forums about that and have gotten advice about it.) Doing it this way with multiple similar diagnoses causes issues for me because neither the providers nor their clinical staff will enter that information on the documentation for billing out the imaging we perform and so I have to enter the multiple diagnoses on the claim itself, which feels like they're adding unnecessary work for me.
EDIT: I am editing this to say the Providers themselves do not order the imaging, the Medical Assistants do.
For instance, this is what our orders look like on an E/M documentation when ordered from the same date of service. (Please ignore the fact that both X-rays and MRIs for the same area are ordered. I have already inquired here on the forums about that and have gotten advice about it.) Doing it this way with multiple similar diagnoses causes issues for me because neither the providers nor their clinical staff will enter that information on the documentation for billing out the imaging we perform and so I have to enter the multiple diagnoses on the claim itself, which feels like they're adding unnecessary work for me.
EDIT: I am editing this to say the Providers themselves do not order the imaging, the Medical Assistants do.
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