Auditing Physician Services: Verifying Accuracy in Physician Services and E/M Coding to Protect Medical Practices

Protect your practice from governmental and third-party payer audits! This book explains complex reimbursement and coding rules and provides audit sheets for key, high-risk areas including E/M services. Today, medical practices face major risks if they don t code physician services accurately. Practices that violate the complex government regulations governing coding may face audits by the Office of the Inspector General for HHS, Recovery Audit Contractors and Medicare Administrative Contractors, and the consequences of such audits can be severe. Physicians and their staff now have a comprehensive guide available which helps practices audit high-risk areas themselves, before payers get involved.Auditing Physician Services: Verifying Accuracy in Physicians Services and E/M Coding To Protect Medical Practices, written by nationally-renowned coding and auditing expert Betsy Nicoletti, MS, CPC, offers critical information, support and plain-English explanations of how to avoid high-risk coding behavior. Auditing Physician Services, provides clear, practical, concrete explanations of complicated coding issues and E/M guidelines, advice on auditing EMR notes, and a range of worksheets allowing physicians to conduct valid, defensible audits. The book also includes an of the 2013 OIG Work Plan which offers insight into how the agency selects physician practices for further review. Contents Medical Practice Compliance and the 2013 OIG Work Plan General Principles of Medical Documentation Aberrant Evaluation and Management Coding Patterns How to Audit Evaluation and Management Services New Patient Visits Consultations Critical Care Services Billing for 99211 Incident To Billing and Shared Visits Use of Modifier 25 Billing for E/M Services During the Global Period Initial Preventive Physical Examinations and Annual Wellness Visits Teaching Physician Rules Care Plan Oversight BONUS Auditing Worksheets as you Audit Your Practice. Worksheets are available for download at the Nicoletti book website in Word Format so you can fill in the blanks! SELECTED Worksheets Include the following: Chapter 1: General Principles of Medical Documentation Audit Sheets General Principles of Medical Documentation--Individual Encounters General Principles of Medial Documentation--Medical Record as a Whole Chapter 2: Aberrant E/M Coding Patterns Audit Sheet Aberrant Evaluation and Management Coding Patterns Chapter 3: How to Audit E/M Services Audit Sheet E/M Documentation Auditing Worksheet Chapter 4: New Patient Visits Audit Sheet New Patient Visit Chapter 5: Consultations Audit Sheet Consult Audit Sheet Chapter 6: Critical Care Services Audit Sheet Critical Care Services Chapter 7: Billing for 99211 Audit Sheet Billing for 99211 Chapter 8: Incident to and Shared Visits Audit Sheets Incident to Test (Quiz and Answer Sheet) Incident to Audit Sheet for Non-physician Practitioner Services --Established Patient Visits Audit Sheet for Non-physician Practitioner Services -- New Patients Incident to Audit Sheet for Nurse Visits Services Shared Visit Audit Sheet Chapter 9: Use of Modifier 25 Audit Sheet Use of Modifier 25 Chapter 10: Billing for E/M Services During the Global Period Audit Sheet Use of Modifier 57 Use of Modifier 24 Use of Modifiers 54 and 55 Chapter 11: Initial Preventive Physical Examination and Wellness Visits Audit Sheets Initial Preventive Physical Examination Annual Wellness Visit Chapter 12: Teaching Physician Rules Audit Sheets Teaching Physicians Time-Based Codes Audit Sheet Teaching Physicians Primary Care Exception Audit Sheet Teaching Physicians Surgical Services Audit Sheet Minor Procedures Teaching Physicians Endoscopy Audit Sheet Teaching Physicians Surgical Services Audit sheet

Betsy Nicoletti, MS, CPC is President of Medical Practice Consulting, based in Vermont, and is the Founder of Codapedia.com a free website dedicated to coding and medical reimbursement. Betsy is a speaker on the National Scene on coding, auditing and compliance and is a consultant and author. Her first book, The Field Guide to Physician Coding, 2nd Edition, is a best-seller published by Greenbranch Publishing. Besides doing auditing and compliance work, she excels at making complicated coding concepts easy for clinicians to understand and use. Betsy Nicoletti's mission is helping doctors get paid for the good work they do.