It is a very time-intensive and daunting job to handle the responsibilities of a healthcare practice. But when it comes to the particular aspect of cardiology billing codes then it becomes extremely difficult for the healthcare staff to manage multiple procedure rules, complex contractual adjustments and sets of medical codes that keep changing regularly.

CPT code assignment has the potential to become the most challenging factor for any healthcare practice. Especially, cardiology is considered as the most complicated field of medical practice. Similarly, it is too complex to handle its business operations.

Particularly, when it comes to the modifiers and staying up to date with new medical codes, revised codes and deleted codes then it takes a lot of time and investment to upgrade the medical billing system.

Also, cardiology billing codes offer other unique sets of challenges. In this article, I’ve tried to address the solutions to almost every problem in cardiology billing codes. Here is the quick guide to analyze and solve these issues;

• Mitigate Human Errors:

Obviously, it is human nature to err. But when it comes to dealing with numbers and letters per code then it is possible to enter them incorrectly. Especially, such mistakes can cause a lot of harm when dealing with multiple codes with complex patients and procedures.

Whether you outsource the responsibility to handle the complicated cardiology billing and coding services or keep it in-house. Make sure that your medical billing staff responsibly double-check every claim every time. Whenever you become more accustomed to ICD-10 and CPT codes then you’ll be able to submit clean claims more efficiently.

Therefore, in order to get relief from this hassle. You should make sure that your billing and coding staff has proficient skills to incorporate accurate medical codes accurately to your existing systems. If you’re unable to recruit technicians for the medical billing and coding system then you should prefer to consult with a well-established medical billing company.

• Comply With The Coding Changes:

The most critical challenge for every specialty practitioner is to keep up with the most current ICD-10 CM and PCS, CPT and HCPCS code books in the office. CMS introduces frequent changes and guidelines and various coding clinics. Although, the AHA (American Heart Association) offers a quarterly newsletter.

However, it’s very easy for cardiologists to refer to the CMS website for updates and subscribe to any online publications offered by CMS, OIG (Office of the Inspector General) and state and local agencies that align rules and regulations for the medical billing practices.

Since cardiologists already have a pile of work that keeps their schedule. Hence, it’s difficult for them to keep pace with these updates and focus on their patients parallelly.

Hence, it’s better to partner with a medical billing company that has knowledgeable and qualified medical billing staff that helps them to comply with medical coding updates.

• Don’t Exaggerate Symptom Coding:

Don’t emphasize related diagnoses that can lead you to report symptoms when you shouldn’t practice so. According to the official guidelines about ICD-10-CM and Reporting (Section B); if you’ve done a confirmed diagnosis then you should not mention signs/ symptom codes in a report.

Also, don’t assign additional codes for signs/ symptoms that are typically related to a disease (unless a specific payer or CMS puts forward an instruction specific to that code). You may report signs/symptoms not regularly associated with the disease process.

• Beware Of The Combo Codes:

ICD-10-CM requires practitioners to use a lot of combination cardiology billing codes. It is essential to make sure that coders have mentioned a patient’s medical condition accurately.

ICD-10 coding classification system includes a few combinations of medical codes for a multitude of cardiology conditions. Make sure that medical coding specialists use an appropriate set of medical codes while considering the significance of specificity of every medical code.

Also, it is important to follow the instructions for a particular set of medical codes to use “additional code”, “code also” or ”code first” to make sure that you’re providing complete, highly distinctive and accurate information on the medical claims.

• Pay Attention To Documentation:

The most critical component of the healthcare revenue cycle management is accurate documentation. If problems occur within the documentation then it can slow down your business operations and reduce the influx of cash flow.

It can also put your practice at risk for audits and mitigate your billable reimbursements. It can be quite tricky to handle coding for cardiac procedures, such as cardiac catheterizations and documentation gaps may lead to the loss of codable components and potential medical code sets.

Usually, it’s very common to anticipate the changes in the cardiology billing codebook. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to thorough and complete documentation. If there is any problem with the documents then would also lead to a host of problems during medical billing and coding processes.

• Frequently Perform Audit:

In order to reduce errors from documentation and medical billing process_ it is essential to perform regular internal and external audits. In this way, your medical billing professionals would identify key areas of improvement in revenue cycle management.

It’ll also open the door for opportunities for questions regarding diagnosis, procedures, supplies used, etc. it is the best medium to properly reflect the acuity and care of the patient.

It is very important to maintain the education of your medical billing staff. Less knowledgeable staff can’t help you comply with the industry updates. As in all aspects of the healthcare industry, there are multiple bodies involved in constructing the framework of this industry.

Frequent medical audits allow medical billers to thoroughly understand their medical billing system and improve the use of cardiology billing codes in the preparation of medical claims.

Medcare MSO is the name of a highly reliable medical billing company in the USA. We’ve been providing innovative solutions for medical billing and coding services for more than 30 specialties.

Last modified: December 29, 2020