Wiki Cancelled surgery billed to Medicare

Kimonae

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Hello,
I am new to Medicare billing and I am looking for advice on sending a corrected claim to Medicare . I manage a ophthalmology practice in MD and noticed last week that a patient's surgery that was previously cancelled has been billed to Medicare in error.
How do I notify Medicare and what is the best course of action to take in this situation?

Thanks in advance.
Carine
 
By law, if you've identified an overpayment from Medicare you are required to refund the payment within 60 days. My recommendation would be to have your practice issue a refund check and then contact your Medicare contractor or go to their web site to find out their voluntary refund process and get the address to submit the check. Likely they will have a form that you will need to fill out and submit along with the check that will have you identify the claim on which the overpayment was made and explain the reason you are making the refund so that they will be able to void the charge that was billed in error.

In my experience, if you try submitting a corrected claim and waiting for them to process it and recoup the overpayment, this could end up causing additional payment errors and/or taking longer to process than the required 60 days. Submitting a voluntary refund is the simplest and quickest way to take care of a charge that is billed in error.
 
For this scenario, what would be the difference in just cancelling the claim rather then going through the refund process? Medicare still gets their money back either way?
 
For this scenario, what would be the difference in just cancelling the claim rather then going through the refund process? Medicare still gets their money back either way?
Because Medicare requires you to refund the money as soon as you are aware there is a problem. Every MAC I've ever worked with has a "voluntary refund" form on their webpage for just such an occasion.
 
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