Practice Management Alert

You Be the Expert:

Billing for New Drugs

Test your knowledge. Determine how you would handle this situation before looking at the box below for the answer.
 

Question: Our practice is preparing to use a new drug in patient treatment. How can we bill for newly developed medications?

Wisconsin Subscriber

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Answer: First, you need to find out whether the Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug for the procedure or treatment you intend to perform. If it's approved but not for your intended use, that's commonly called "off-label use." Many insurance companies will not pay for the drug if they know it's for an off-label indication. Medicare, which pays for very few drugs, will not pay for off-label use. If the drug requires prior authorization, Medicaid won't pay for off-label use, either. State medical boards govern physicians' use of drugs, and the legality of off-label use is different state to state.

If the drug is FDA-approved for your intended use, ask the drug company's representative what code to use when billing for the new drug. You can also look for the company's reimbursement hotline, designed to answer providers' questions about coding and reimbursement issues. Most drug companies will know the appropriate codes for billing new drugs because those codes help their clients get reimbursed for their products.

However, don't bet everything on the rep's word: Call all the payers you participate with and your Medicare contractor to ensure you know how they require you to bill for the drug. Different payers may have different rules. Although the phone research may take some time, it will save you a costly delay in getting those claims paid.

Using expensive new drugs can be tricky: If you don't look carefully at the reimbursement that your payers offer, you could end up losing money on the drug.

When a drug does get a code, it will probably be a HCPCS "J" code.