A cardiology facility is prone to many unwanted and special billing and coding challenges that won’t be encountered in any other healthcare discipline. With the ever evolving technologies and increasingly-complex claims filing protocols which includes endovascular surgery, electrophysiology and diagnostic tests, to mention a few, cardiology billing needs the attention of the experts.
To start with the best practices, remember one thing, cardiology coding is extremely multifaceted, with its unique terminology, and needs experienced and trained staff to accurately code interventional procedures such as cardiac catheterization laboratory, electrophysiology, and computerized tomographic angiography (CCTA). If you are in the catch-22 situation wherein your facility is losing money due to denied or delayed claims, the reason may be your in-house billing and coding staff, which lack the expertise in cardiology medical claims billing as they should be.
Below are the best practices cardiologist need to utilize in order to stabilize their income cycle
Electronic Health Records
In the present day healthcare scenario, EHR systems are used to collect and store patient health data digitally. These records ensure that the accuracy of the documentation and tracks your patient information. Incorrect documentation can slow down your facilities income cycle. This can put your practice at risk of audits, and cut the billable expense via reimbursements. To ensure your claims are not delayed or denied documentation through EHR is vital as common changes in anticipated in procedures can be recorded. EHR systems helps the medical billing and coding team to and ensure each and every information you are store is easy to access and checked in case a claim gets denied.
Codes Combination
With the yearly developments in medical codes, one should remember that ICD-10 contains few combination codes required for different cardiology conditions. The best practice is to use them where suitable without any errors or omissions. Your in-house coders need to follow the new code instructions to use additional codes. Documentation and combo codes are vital for to stabilize your cardiology income cycle.
Training for success
The only way to improve on your lagging AR days, claim denials or errors in billing are through training and updates. One vital best practice for all cardiology practitioners is to provide regular training to your charging staff on the intricacies. It checks that your coders are updated, and won’t let any cash slip out of hands. And as the billing and coding regulations are constantly updating, your staff needs to have knowledge about these constant updates.
Diagnosis coding details
It is essential to avoid reporting symptoms when they are not included in the patient document. If you as a physician are sure about the patient diagnosis, you should be reporting this instead of using a symptoms code. If detailed instructions are missing from notes, avoid using additional code for the symptoms which are generally associated with a disease. According to the latest ICD-10 official recommendations, symptoms which are not associated with disease may be reported.
