Make More Profitable Billing Practices a New Year Resolution for 2016

It’s not news that operating margins can be very thin—making it all the more perplexing that so many practices leave money on the table by not billing or coding correctly. While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said it will not deny claims for incorrect codes during the first year following implementation of ICD-10 in October 2015, provided that submitted codes are within the right code family, that’s only the tip of the coding error iceberg. Studies show that nearly 80 percent of medical bills contain at least one error, leading to denied claims that either go unpaid or require resubmitting, thereby delaying payment. Typically, the culprits are clerical errors involving basic patient information (eg, name, date of birth) or physician identifiers; incorrect referral information; or something as simple as an incorrect date of service.