Exceptional Coders | Innovative Technology

A recent Forbes article entitled “Physician Documentation And Coding: The Third Rail?” showcased the potential missed opportunities to fully understanding the correlation between physician documentation and coding and their resulting effects. Whereas patients may interpret documentation as a doctor providing an account of your visit in your medical record, providers have a far greater impact with documentation. Documentation and coding can affect revenue, quality of care, and potentially expose providers to legal compliance consequences.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule earlier this month that includes updates to payment policies and rates for services provided under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) effective on or after January 1, 2020, as well as updates to its E/M coding starting on January 1, 2021.

Coordinated Health and its founder and CEO entered recently into an agreement with the federal government to settle False Claims Act allegations, according to the Department of Justice. The health system will pay $11.25 million and founder and CEO Emil Dilorio, MD will pay $1.25 million to settle the allegations. In addition to the monetary settlement, the system entered into a corporate integrity agreement with HHS that will require monitoring of its billing practices for five years.

Modern Healthcare reported recently that DaVita Medical Holdings will pay a $270 million settlement to the federal government over allegations that the company incorrectly inflated certain Medicare Advantage reimbursements above the fixed, risk-adjusted rate owed for care.

A recent article in Medical Economics pointed out a persistent problem that some physicians continue to overcode and overbill, despite increased focus on the cost of healthcare and scrutiny by federal regulators.  According to the article, a new report by ProPublica, which analyzed CMS data between 2012 to 2015, a number of physicians overcoded on services provided under Medicare’s Part B program.

A recent Becker’s Hospital Review article stated that Catholic Health had agreed to pay $6M to settle overbilling allegations. A nursing home subsidiary of the health system allegedly submitted claims to Medicare for the highest and most expensive levels of therapy when that type of therapy was not medically necessary or was unsupported by medical records. The allegations against Catholic Health were originally brought by a whistle-blower under the qui tam provision of the False Claims Act.

The medical sector has been undergoing a series of interminable changes over the last few years. In consequence, healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) market is set to witness a marked growth because of the rising need for timely bill reimbursements and insurance claims. Increased complexity in the medical coding process has led to the necessity of RCM solutions that help reduce billing errors.

As you are well aware, Congress created Medicare Advantage (MA) as a risk adjustment payment program that pays insurers more for sicker beneficiaries. Payers in MA receive a yearly fee for each enrolled member and monthly risk adjustment payments for each enrolled beneficiary, based partly on the person’s health status. This program can be open to fraud. Medicare Advantage payers received about $160 billion in 2015 for approximately 16 million beneficiaries. HHS estimates that the FY 2015 Medicare Part C gross improper payment estimate is 9.50 percent or $14.12 billion, along with the FY 2015 net improper payment estimate of 4.32 percent or $6.41 billion.

An article in Modern Healthcare magazine reported that physicians who serve low-income patients with complex conditions are more vulnerable to financial losses in value-based payment models. The study that found these providers, many of them safety-net providers, didn't have the technological infrastructure to report the necessary data.