Since late February of 2020, the country has dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic, and we have seen multiple coding changes occur over the previous months. As the pandemic continues to surge around the country, we see coding changes that have been sparked by the healthcare response to the pandemic.
According to Modern Healthcare, claim denials cost hospitals around $262 billion each year, and that doesn’t take into account the dollars lost by medical practices across the country due to denied claims. We’ve been looking at some of the most common denial codes, and denial CO 50 is another very popular one that many practices encounter. CO 50 means that the payer refused to pay the claim because they did not deem the service or procedure as medically necessary.
For 2021, we’re seeing one of the biggest major overhauls to guidelines and codes for office E/M services, with significant changes to the Current Procedural Terminology code set coming. The goal of all the modifications for the coming year is to making E/M office visit documentation and coding more flexible and simpler, reducing the administrative burden on physicians and patient care teams.
When was the last time you had an honest talk with your patients about their healthcare costs? Unfortunately, money is one of those discussions that many practitioners don’t seem to bring up enough when talking candidly about options. Too many assume that the insurance company will handle it or don’t even know the various charges associated with the diagnostic tests, treatments, and medications they’re prescribing.
When medical claims are denied, it costs practices money, resources and time. Not only has the practice wasted the time and effort it originally devoted to coding the claim, but it must now use additional resources to track down the reason for the denial and fix it. Only then can the claim once again be processed for payment. This also means the medical practice is without payment for a longer period of time.
