Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

• Good news for hospices that submit claims with physician services: A claims system fix for a doc service-related error will be here sooner than originally thought. The problem: An error with the Outpatient Code Editor is causing hospice claims that contain physician services to return to provider with reason code W7072. The solution: The system fix was originally scheduled for October, but now has been moved up to July, notes regional intermediary Cahaba GBA on its Web site.Until then, use the following workaround to get such claims paid: First, remove the physician services from the claim and F9 your claim, Cahaba instructs. Then "once the claim has processed (P B9997), you may submit an add-on claim (TOB 8X5) for the physician charges which were removed from the claim," the intermediary says. To read more about Cahaba's clams processing issues,visit the carrier's Web site at www.cahabagba.com/rhhi/index.htm. • Keep an [...]