Are Online Coding Discussions Putting Your Practice at Risk?
Medical Office Manager – October 2018
by Cheryl Toth, MBA
Here’s an email we recently saw while monitoring a specialty coding listserv:
Subject: Acromioplasty and hardware removal with total shoulder arthroplasty
Hello All,
We have a surgeon that says I am not an aggressive coder because I communicate to him when NCCI indicates that certain procedures are bundled, and now I am second-guessing myself. Can you confirm whether or not 23130 and 20680 for removal of 2 suture anchors from the humeral canal from a previous rotator cuff repair are bundled with 23472?
Perhaps you think your employees would have enough common sense not to post something like this online. But unfortunately, we see questions like Debra’s on coding discussion boards and listservs all the time.
If you haven’t caught on yet, Debra’s question has inferred that her doctor prefers unbundling to following CCI edits. And the domain name in her email address would make any auditor salivate, because identifying this practice and its physicians will take all of about two seconds.