OIG finds $873K in overpayments. State Medicaid programs are paying for more than 24 hours of personal care services — and that’s bad news. In four of the five states studied, the programs in 2005 paid for more than 24 hours of…

Warning: Brief history and review probably won’t qualify for E/M code when your NP administers a vaccine. Question: A nurse practitioner (NP) sees a 65-year-old established patient for a pneumonia vaccination. Before administering the vaccine, she records a brief history of the…

Test your documentation attentiveness with these ICD-9 examples. Subtle differences in your physician’s documentation could radically change which diagnosis codes you should report on a claim for a pregnant patient. You’ll do one of two things: • Choose a code from the pregnancy…

Knee surgeons starting to use pain pumps? Check question 3 As many as 300,000 Americans tear or rupture an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) each year. But the fact that arthroscopic ACL surgery is common doesn’t mean coding the procedure is straightforward.…

Plus:  AHIMA asks CMS for more time before moving to ICD-10. With all the discussion of new CPT codes, it’s easy to let the new Category III codes fall through the cracks. But CPT 2009 will offer a few Category III…