Wiki Obligation to interpret xrays

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Billingandcoding2

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Our office performs xrays in house, 95% of the time they are done on a different day than the office visit. Are we obligated to interpret the xrays taken? There are times when a xray is scheduled/performed but it is not documented in the office visit encounter. It is not billed out since it is not documented (neither the technical nor professional portion is billed). Are we obligated to read and interpret/dictate the findings of an xray if we take an xray? We spend a lot of time reconciling if performed xrays are billed/dictated and it is a minimal revenue loss. I'd like to redirect our valuable time to no longer audit this, but want to be sure we do not have an obligation to read all xrays performed.

Thank you in advance for your input!
 
This sounds like two different things to me. One - the rev cycle component. Two - the medical/legal component. The practice is at risk if they are performing these but no one is ever interpreting them. Something like this needs to be brought to the compliance director, med director, or someone higher than a coder. Don't just look at it from the dollar point of view. The other issue is bigger.
When/why they are being ordered and why they are not being done on the same day?

Are coders spending time hunting down radiology reports?

 
amyjph said:
This sounds like two different things to me. One - the rev cycle component. Two - the medical/legal component. The practice is at risk if they are performing these but no one is ever interpreting them. Something like this needs to be brought to the compliance director, med director, or someone higher than a coder. Don't just look at it from the dollar point of view. The other issue is bigger.
When/why they are being ordered and why they are not being done on the same day?

Are coders spending time hunting down radiology reports?

Click to expand...
They are indeed two separate things. I don't mind losing the revenue as it takes more FTEs to audit than saved by auditing, but I am concerned about a legal obligation to read images taken. We are an orthopedic practice we have a majority of patients coming in for joint pain/evaluation for joint replacement surgery. If they do not have a recent xray we will schedule them for an xray and their office visit is scheduled at a later date. It may be that the providers see the imaging but do not bill out because they do not know it was in house xray, it could be that they do not realize we have taken imaging and the presentation during the visit doesn't warrant one so they do not dictate or review. It could be they selected the wrong template for dictation and the charge did not auto populate for them. It could be it was billed but charge review staff missed reconciling the xray slip.
 
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