Accurate coding is vital for all medical practices as it is the main source of reimbursement. It not only reduces claim denials and increases revenue; but also plays a significant role in insurance assessments. Coding is an irreversible process that decides whether or not your practice will get paid for the services offered.
Error-free coding is not just fundamental to timely payments but also gives a database that can be used in contract negotiations and practice profiling. Since the federal government uses the codes submitted by you to search for health care fraud, accurate coding will protect your practice from any sort of abuse investigations. Hence beginning from helping in clinical research to meeting federal and state reporting requirements, coding is crucial for your practice more than you can imagine.
Is your staff making these critical coding blunders?
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Amidst the rising pressure from new reforms, physicians cannot afford to lose focus on coding basics. The following mistakes must be avoided if practices don’t want to affect their reputation and payments-
- Unbundling codes
- Submitting a claim without correcting any major or minor mistake in documents
- Under-coding
- Using modifiers in a random manner
- Wrong procedure code selection
- Being unable to link diagnosis codes
- Not staying updated with coding changes
- Mistakes in interpretation of operative reports
- Failing to code the diagnosis code to highest level
Ways to avoid coding mistakes-
One of the best ways to avoid the coding errors mentioned above is to establish a good line of communication with your coders on a regular basis. Practices also need to invest time and money in training coders so that they remain updated with changes in healthcare reforms. It also helps to compare the codes of your practice to benchmark data for your speciality.
Moreover physicians or coders should perform occasional audits of approximately 10-20 charts per provider. This will help them ensure if everyone’s coding is accurate and on track. Coding is the most crucial part of your practice to procure payments, requiring monitoring at regular intervals. Since adherence to new healthcare reforms is leaving physicians with less time for patient care, outsourcing coding and billing tasks to a billing partner can bring an end to all their woes.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com helps practices strengthen their revenue generation procedure through its outsourced coding and billing services. We have the largest team of expert billers and coders who use the latest technology and software to offer accurate coding services to physicians across 50 states in the US. MBC coders are constantly updated with changes in regulations like ICD-10 requirements to offer error-free coding. Our aim is to organize your coding requirements to helpd achieve lesser denials, reduce costs and speed up the billing process to help optimize your practice revenues. Hence in the current competitive healthcare environment while our experts handle the complexities of coding, billing and documentation, you can focus on quality patient care and increased patient satisfaction.