Wiki Audiology Office Visits

[johnnyrowmiller@gmail.com]

I just started recently working in an Audiology office doing many roles but as a coder, that's my main focus. Does anyone work in audiology - a biller or coder? I'm curious why our office does not get paid for any office visits. I am new to this field and I can't come up with a reason as to why an audiologist would not be paid for an office visit. From what I've found in my own research, perhaps audiologists are not paid for office visits because they are a doctor of audiology but do not have the ability to write a script? Which doesn't really make any sense but I'm grasping as straws. I've been a coder for 10+ years but I cannot figure this out.

 

[johnnyrowmiller@gmail.com]

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[CBLENNIE]

I just started recently working in an Audiology office doing many roles but as a coder, that's my main focus. Does anyone work in audiology - a biller or coder? I'm curious why our office does not get paid for any office visits. I am new to this field and I can't come up with a reason as to why an audiologist would not be paid for an office visit. From what I've found in my own research, perhaps audiologists are not paid for office visits because they are a doctor of audiology but do not have the ability to write a script? Which doesn't really make any sense but I'm grasping as straws. I've been a coder for 10+ years but I cannot figure this out.

Many payers may be following CMS as to what type of non-physician practitioners (NPPs) they will consider benefits for E&M services. Per IOM 100-04 Medicare Claims Processing Manual Chapter 12 - Physicians/Nonphysician Practitioners section 30.6.1 A. General Rules shows the following in part:

You can always try to negotiate with the commercial payers you contract with to include E&M codes on your providers fee schedule but based on my 20+ years working for payers I don't know how successful you will be in getting the bigger commercial payers to include the E&M codes on your provider's fee schedule.