{"id":3280,"date":"2013-12-16T12:31:35","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T12:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcodersblog.com\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2026-02-13T14:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T14:36:27","slug":"preparing-your-optometry-billing-for-medicare-audits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcoders.com\/blog\/preparing-your-optometry-billing-for-medicare-audits\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing your Optometry Billing for Medicare Audits"},"content":{"rendered":"

The field of Optometry has seen exponential growth in patient traffic and scope of care over the past decade. With healthcare reforms aiming to bring more and more people under coverage for primary care, government is inducting many alternative healthcare specializations into primary care.<\/p>\n

As Optometry practices are finding expansion of their scope, their liability is also increasing. 60% of the patients walking into OD clinics today are relying on Medicare coverage to avail medical services. Therefore, in addition to adhering to required ICD-9 coding requirements of Optometry, there are a series of activities that ODs have to adopt in order to prepare for and avoid Medicare audits.<\/p>\n

Incorrect billing is also considered as fraudulent billing at the time of Medicare\/Medicaid audits and Optometric practices are required to reimburse the insurance carriers with the additional paid amount. Sometimes an amount is penalized as well given the extrapolation of extra reimbursements.<\/p>\n

This in turn puts heavy financial pressure on any Optometry practice that has to suffer through Medicare audit. To avoid such financial burden, therefore, it is important to prepare your Optometry practice for avoiding and surviving audits.<\/p>\n