Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

You shouldn't need to meet the requirement in the meantime.While you wait for CMS to officially rescind the rule requiring physician signatures on clinical diagnostic laboratory test requisitions, your Medicare contractor shouldn't be enforcing the rule.That's according to a memorandum from the Medicare Contractor Management Group director to all Fiscal Intermediaries (FIs), Carriers, and Part A/Part B Medicare Administrative Contractors (AB/MACs).Recall the Signature-Requirement Back StoryCMS delayed implementation and unofficially announced its intention to rescind the rule by April 1 -- which you read about in Pathology/Lab Coding Alert Vol. 12 No. 5, "Look for Lab Requisition Physician Signature Reprieve." The agency ran into difficulties meeting that deadline, however.Here's why: To formally rescind the rule, CMS needs to go through the regular administrative process, which means issuing a notice or rule and requesting comment. That process may not conclude until the end of 2011, according to CMS.Keep Current StandardThe Medicare Benefit Policy [...]