Wiki Place and Date of Service for Interpretations?

[alincoln]

A few years ago when Virginia was under Trailblazers they changed their policy on the place and date of service for interpretations of diagnostic tests. They changed the policy to have physicians report the actual DATE and LOCATION of the interpretation/professional component, not the date the test/technical component (hospital tests in my scenario) were done. When Virginia switched to Palmetto I asked how this should be handled and Palmetto advised me to continue with the Trailblazer policy.

Now I see that CMS has revised a policy effective April 1, 2012 stating that the POS on the interpretation/professional component should be the location the test was performed in and I'm good with that, makes sense to me.
Does anyone have info or suggestions on how to find the answer to whether this affects the date of service for these interpretations? Should they continue to be billed with the date of interpretation or go back to billing the date the test was performed?

Thanks for any advice!!

 

[Pam Warren]

The only thing that's changed with regards to MM7631 is the POS designation. The DOS should always reflect the date of the actual professional charge that you are billing. Report the date that the provider reads/interprets the test as your DOS. That can be different than the date of the technical charge, and frequently is.

 

[alincoln]

Thank you for the feedback Pam! I was thinking that it stayed the same since I coudn't find any reference to the DOS changing... but wanted to get another opinion.

Thanks again!