Wiki Training on Mental Health Billing

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I am in WI and every spring we have one through the Wi med society which is good.

There are not many out there. I feel your pain. My best advice is to learn through trial and error as best you can and read alot online and network as much as you can. Thats what I did. I was thrown into this field with no knowledge at all and basically had to figure it all out. There are some specialty books out there, but I am not sure just how helpful they are.
 
I'd concur with the comments to teach yourself--so to speak. Mental health services coding does not get the same attention in training. I have never determined why . . . no one really seems to fully understand it!

I'd also say to seek out information from Medicare. As an example, Trailblazer and Noridian both have a mental health services coding guide available. Be sure you look at the bright side: once you get it down, you'll have a leg up on most of the other coders you know!

Good luck. I've found this forum to be of great benefit to me.
 
i was also thrown in with no life raft and i am tring to figure it out as well i have not found much help online or elsewhere. im trying to wing it let me know you find anything extraordinary out there that helps

tina
 
Training on Mental Health

I have done a few presentations locally in Indianapolis on Mental Health coding and am happy to try to answer some questions. I agree with the other posts that it is a lot of teaching yourself. One resource, besides payer resources, that we have found pretty valuable is the CPT Handbook for Psychiatrists.

Chandra
 
Chandra:

What exactly is this resource? Who publishes this item and what have you found most helpful? I think all of us are probably desparate to share resources . . . ha, ha!

I'm in Louisville and with the VA here, so our fundamental resources are payer memoranda and internal VA publications. However, sometimes those simply are not enough.

Thanks!
 
Kevin -

The CPT Handbook for Psychiatrists, while not updated since 2004, is just that...a handbook. It takes all of the psychiatry and psychology codes and gives a description of the service that should be rendered during each and lists the minimum documentation requirements for each service. It is published by the American Psychiatry Association. Most of the information in it is supported by, elaborates on, or links to CMS requirements. Feel free to email me if there is anything else I can do to help as I'm not always faithful about checking the forums :) My email is clsteph2@gmail.com.

I think all of us sharing and working together is the only way we get anything done some days!!

Chandra
 
Cross Country Education offers a mental health workshop. I wasn't real pleased with the last one that I attended. It seemed to be geared more toward the provider than a coder. It is agrivating the lack of training that is offered for this speciality.
 
Hi, I am just looking for some extra support. I spent a approximately a year (April 2008 to May 2009) in a Medical Billing and Coding Specialist program at a local business school (Ridley Lowell Business and Technology Institue) in CT, graduated, joined the AAPC, studied on my own and passed my CPC-A exam. The problem is that my school was affliated with NHA when I started and AAPC when I finished my program; however, an internship was not part of the program. Therefore, in the interest of trying find a another place of employment before my student loan entered repayment, I signed on as an Extern at a local Mental/Behavioral Health site. There are still no available AAPC Project Extern slots. Anyway, I am assisting the site's Director and the site's Manager with Billing and Advocacy. This is not a small practice but a select group of clinicians who rent space from the site's Director and provide a range of Mental/Behavioral Health services. The clinicians do their own coding and the site's Manager is in the process of establishing e'filing capabilities for all clinicians who are interested. Practice Management software being to expensive for the number of clinicians involved. I am wondering if there is a free or inexpensive resource that can aide in my advocacy research assignments. I have tried using the internet; however, I seem to come up with several false leads. My latest assignment involves gettin interest from the insurance companies. My text books hinted at this process but I would appreciate additional advice. I would also like to know if ICD and CPT codes affect Mental/Behavioral Health reimbursement rates. Please advise.

You can email me at: jmcghome@sbcglobal.net
jmcghome@hotmail.com
mcganngal@aol.com
spcbilling@gmail.com

In addition: find me on Facebook, Linked-In, Classmates
 
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