Radiology Coding Alert

Presented by Stacie L. Buck, RHA, LHRM The following supplement to Radiology Coding Alert is the transcript of a teleconference presented by The Coding Institute. To obtain the slides for the conference, please log on to our Online Subscription System at http://codinginstitute.com/login and download the current issue, and the slides will be contained therein. If you're not sure how to use the Online Subscription System or need help downloading the issue, please contact our customer service department at 1-800-508-2582 or service@medville.com, and one of our representatives will be able to assist you.

The speaker for the teleconference, Stacie L. Buck, RHIA, LHRM, is the president of Health Information Management Associates, Inc. in North Palm Beach, Florida. She has served as a medical records coordinator, medical coder, revenue analyst, internal auditor, corporate compliance officer and independent consultant during her 13-year career in health information management. Stacie frequently writes and speaks on coding and compliance topics and has authored several training handbooks including the Medical Necessity Training Handbook for Physicians and the ABN Training Handbook for Physician Practices. Stacie is an adjunct instructor and advisory board member for the health information management program at Indian River Community College in Florida and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Florida Health Information Management Association. Thank you Mandy.  It is pleasure to be here this morning to speak to everyone about ABNs.  This morning, I am going to take a little different approach to doing an audio seminar on ABNs, I know a lot of times when this topic is presented, it really focuses on obtaining the ABN itself.  I want to do today is not only go over obtaining a valid ABN, but also give you some information at a higher level and also help you implement processes and policies and procedures in your facilities.  So some of the things that we are going to cover today are compliance, implications associated with ABN, of course we will also talk about making medical necessity determinations, obtaining valid ABNs, billing with the appropriate modifiers and condition codes - which is crucial to your billing process.  Also we will take a brief look at how you can get the content of NCDs and LCDs modified.  We will also take a look at implementing policies and procedures and we will go over some process recommendations for you to use in your facility or your practice.

It always amazes me that as long as ABNs and medical necessity has been around, it is such a challenging issue whether you work in a hospital setting or in the physician setting.  So hopefully today with what I am giving you, this will actually help [...]