Cardiology Billing Partners ready for vast 2009 coding changes

Dec. 29, 2008 - PRLog -- ORLANDO -Cardiology Billing Partners (www.cardiologybilling.com), a national provider of outsourced billing and revenue cycle management to cardiovascular practices nationwide is ready for upcoming cardiology coding changes in 2009.

2009 brings some of the most significant coding changes cardiology has seen in over 15 years.

Across the board the average Medicare fee increased just 1.1 percent. Cardiology in general experiencing an average decrease of 2% due primarily to decreases in payments for in-office imaging.

As a result some cardiology practices will see revenue decreases far exceeding the average 2% (particularly the offices heavily dependant on echo and nuclear imaging services).  Other cardiovascular services may experience increases if properly managed.

Here are examples of some of the upcoming changes:

-- All of the codes previously used to submit charges for implanted device follow-up have been deleted and replaced with new codes. Not only have the old codes been replaced, but they have been replaced with a more updated code set that provides codes for checks of devices with leads in 3 chambers, codes specific to a remote(internet) device check, codes for following ICM devices, codes for periprocedural checks, etc.

-- Some of the device follow-up services will now have either 90 or 30 day global periods. The new codes are also broken into different device service types – either an interrogation evaluation or a programming evaluation. Your choice of code no longer depends on whether or not the device was reprogrammed.  

-- 2009 also brings codes specific to a wearable cardiac telemetry device such as a Cardionet type service. This is the end to billing with the unlisted procedure code – but there are some issues here too. These codes also have global days.

-- The echo services are also seeing new codes. When you do an echo with a Doppler and color flow you’ll have a new code to submit that bundles these services into one code. The same is true for a new stress echo code that bundles the stress test code and stress echo into one code.

“The 2009 coding changes could lower your collections by over 5% if not properly managed, however, they could also increase your collections over the 2008 levels with some careful preparation ” said Michael Patrick, Cardiology Billing Partner’s regional VP of Sales.  

Is your billing department ready for these changes?  For more information contact www.cardiologybilling.com

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Cardiology Billing Partners is a privately held provider of revenue cycle and practice management solutions, consulting services & business process analysis to cardiology practices nationwide. Cardiology Billing Partners has over 100 employees and presence in Austin, Dallas, Orlando, Pittsburgh and San Jose. More information on Cardiology Billing Partners is available at www.cardiologybilling.com or at (407)579-0753