Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Avoid making some of the biggest errors that MACs see.A lax approach to documenting time for your prolonged services encounters could land you in hot water with the feds. So indicated Part B MAC National Government Services in a May 24 education session, "Medical Review Error Webinar," which laid bare issues that NGS found to be chronically miscoded, with tips on how to avoid making the same errors.Prolonged Services Often Misbilled, NGS NotesThe payer found that a common error among Part B practices was that documentation did not support the medical necessity for prolonged E/M service codes. "Prolonged services of less than 30 minutes total duration on a given date are not separately reported," the NGS rep noted.She reminded practices that although time spent with the patient does not need to be continuous, it must be clear and accurately documented in the medical record. You'll report +99354 for the first [...]