Hot off the press! Eliminating consult code payments for 2010: Symposium Briefing

While attending the AMA Symposium this week there was a HUGE uproar about eliminating payments for consults.  I thought one physician was going to take the head off of the guy from CMS!  Whoa baby, talk about hot!  Then you have the coders who are gunning for bear.  The AMA left the CPT consult codes in for 2010 but CMS says they won’t pay!  In light of this, the attending physicians are going to have to bill the initial hospital care day with a modifier.  Then the consultants come along and they have to use the initial hospital care day codes as well, but no modifier.  If the attending who admitted the patient forgets to use the modifier and all CMS gets are 3 initial hospital care day services, they will all go to medical review.  Personally, I don’t think there are enough physicians to address this one!  

For MediRegs® subscribers, the 2010 procedure codebooks are ready! Check the Daily E-Mail alert in the Coding Suite or the Regulation & Reimbursement Suite.

For those that are not current customers and are interested in trial access to The Coding Suite™, please go to http://codingsuite.mediregs.com, click on the left nav “Register here” and simply fill out the form. 

Written By Georgeann Edford, RN, MBA, CCS-P