Wiki Routine Foot Care

[krendina9127@hotmail.com]

Hi All!

I recently started coding for the Podiatry Division at my employer and I'm struggling with the Routine Foot Care for Medicare Patients. Is there anything out there that is almost like a Routine Foot Care Decision Making Tree? I know the CPT manual has decision making trees in other areas of the manual but I wish there was a check list or decision making tree/checklist to decipher quickly whether the patient qualifies for the routine care codes or not and the provider should only be billing for an E & M service.

Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Tami_F]

Did you see that there was a webinar earlier this month? That may be a good place to start.

 

[podcoder70]

I am sure there are some out there, however, podiatry has so many different rules that apply depending on your MAC that it would be difficult to make one that is super reliable. The first place to start is to pull the LCD for routine foot care for your Medicare Jurisdiction. That will guide you as to the covered diagnosis codes.
To address your concern about whether to bill RFC or E&M, that is simple. If the treatment of calluses or nails is performed and it is not a covered benefit, it is CASH pay. An e&m cannot be billed instead of the appropriate procedure code. Feel free to reach out to me privately if you would like some additional guidance.
Tonia

 

[krendina9127@hotmail.com]

Did you see that there was a webinar earlier this month? That may be a good place to start.

I actually did attend/view that webinar, and it was very helpful. The only thing I wish there were was in addition to the presentation was differenet clinical examples to see.

 

[krendina9127@hotmail.com]

I am sure there are some out there, however, podiatry has so many different rules that apply depending on your MAC that it would be difficult to make one that is super reliable. The first place to start is to pull the LCD for routine foot care for your Medicare Jurisdiction. That will guide you as to the covered diagnosis codes.
To address your concern about whether to bill RFC or E&M, that is simple. If the treatment of calluses or nails is performed and it is not a covered benefit, it is CASH pay. An e&m cannot be billed instead of the appropriate procedure code. Feel free to reach out to me privately if you would like some additional guidance.
Tonia

Hi yes! I'd love any additional guidance I can get. Like I said, I was thrown into this division and not receiving any real training. I'm also supposed to be able to educate my providers on some of this information so I really want to have a firm grasp of what they can and cannot bill.