This report provides a general overview of the Medicare program including descriptions of the program's history, eligibility criteria, covered services, provider payment systems, and program administration and financing.

Section 1557 is the nondiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This brief guide explains Section 1557 in more detail and what your practice needs to do to meet the requirements of this federal law. Includes sample notices of nondiscrimination, as well as taglines translated for the top 15 languages by state.

Recoup lost time and revenue with denials management and appeals know-how. Claim denials can sink a profit margin. And given the cost of appeals, roughly $118 per claim, not all denials can be reworked. A practice submitting 50 claims a day at an average reimbursement rate of $200 per claim should bring in $10,000 in daily revenue. But if 10% of those claims are denied, and the practice can only appeal one, they lose $800 per day—upwards of $200K annually. Your medical claims are the lifeblood of operations. Don’t compromise your financial health. Learn how to preempt denials with the Denials Management & Appeals Reference Guide. This vital resource will equip you to get ahead of payers by simplifying the leading causes of denials and showing you how to address insufficient documentation, failing to establish medical necessity, coding and billing errors, coverage stipulations, and untimely filing. Rely on AAPC to walk you through the appeal process. We’ll help you establish protocols to avoid an appeals backlog and teach you how to identify and prioritize denials likely to win an appeal. What’s more, you’ll learn when a claim can be “reopened” to fix a problem. Collect the revenue your practice deserves with effective denials and appeals solutions: Know how to analyze your denials Defeat documentation and compliance issues for successful claims success Utilize payer policy for coverage clues Lock in revenue with face-to-face reimbursement guidance Refine efforts to avoid E/M claim denials Ace ICD-10 coding for optimum reimbursement Put an end to modifier confusion Stave off denials with CCI edits advice Navigate the appeals process like a pro And much more!

These guidelines have been approved by the four organizations that make up the Cooperating Parties for the ICD-10-CM: the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), CMS, and NCHS. These guidelines are a set of rules that have been developed to accompany and complement the official conventions and instructions provided within the ICD-10-CM itself. The instructions and conventions of the classification take precedence over guidelines. These guidelines are based on the coding and sequencing instructions in the Tabular List and Alphabetic Index of ICD-10-CM, but provide additional instruction. Adherence to these guidelines when assigning ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes is required under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The diagnosis codes (Tabular List and Alphabetic Index) have been adopted under HIPAA for all healthcare settings. A joint effort between the healthcare provider and the coder is essential to achieve complete and accurate documentation, code assignment, and reporting of diagnoses and procedures. These guidelines have been developed to assist both the healthcare provider and the coder in identifying those diagnoses that are to be reported. The importance of consistent, complete documentation in the medical record cannot be overemphasized. Without such documentation accurate coding cannot be achieved. The entire record should be reviewed to determine the specific reason for the encounter and the conditions treated.

"Coding with Modifiers, 6th Ed, is the ultimate resource for modifier guidelines. This revised edition provides guidance on how and when to use modifiers in order to avoid costly payment delays and denials. Coding with Modifiers uses real-life modifier scenarios and medical records to guide correct CPT® and HCPCS modifier usage. Modifiers create clear, concise communications between the provider and payer, and are essential to the coding process. Clinical documentation improvement and other pertinent considerations highlight important clinical documentation improvements for each modifier and related best practices to ensure correct modifier usage. Provides guidelines from CPT, CMS, third-party payers, and NCCI to explain how and when to use modifiers to avoid payment delays and denials"--