Medical Claims and Billing

February 12, 2010

How to Bill: Facial and Dental Nerve Blocks

Filed under: How To Bill — Tags: , , — Coder @ 7:17 am

When you have a procedure that can cover two close but distinctly different areas such as a facial and a dental nerve block, you need to make sure that your claim encompasses exactly the procedure that was done or you may wind up with a denial of your claim.

A common situation would be if the ED physician performed a diagnostic nerve block on a patient complaining of pain in the floor of her mouth and her bottom set of teeth. You would want to be certain that you chose 64402 (Injection, anesthetic agent; facial nerve) for facial nerve blocks, not blocks in the mouth or jaw. The determining factor is that the surgeon treated a branch of the trigeminal nerve, not the facial nerve.  (more…)

January 6, 2010

Avoid Rejected Claims

Filed under: Coding Tips — Tags: , , — Coder @ 8:57 am

When your medical billing claims get rejected, one claim can put your staff behind on everything they are supposed to be doing.  The patient’s folder will have to be pulled, the notes will have to be re-read and researched, the claim will have to be compiled again and the coding will need to be double checked again to make sure you are using the latest codings and modifiers for the claim. In some cases the carrier will need to be contacted which is more time lost from servicing your practice and the claim will have to be submitted once again and the will take more time away from your day to day servicing of patients.  (more…)

Powered by WordPress