COVID-19 and Medical Billing Services
COVID-19 virus, also known as the Novel Coronavirus, has been declared as the world pandemic by the World Health Organization. This is severely affecting the health and financial aspect of the economy and people in general.
With the outbreak of this pandemic across the world, there are various new challenges every day and the healthcare providers are implementing new and emergency plans in order to adapt with those challenges. The healthcare workers are acting as the backbone of the economy and are playing an important role in response to the outbreak.
As the number of cases are increasing day by day, telemedicine has emerged as an important tool. It is the best way to take care of people who have come in contact with the virus. This allows physicians to treat & communicate with the patients digitally by protecting their own health at the same time. Also, it allows the patient to consult without having to leave their home or possibly spreading the virus.
With the rise in telemedicine, the need for medical billing and coding outsourcing companies is also increasing because they help the physicians to get the reimbursement for the telemedicine services.
Various new medical coding guidelines have been established by WHO, AMA and CMS. They include two new HCPCS (U0001 and U0002), a CPT code (87635), and an ICD-10-CM code (U07.1). The HCPCS and CPT codes go into effect April 1, 2020 for dates of service on or after February 4, 2020. The ICD-10-CM code was initially scheduled to go into effect October 1, 2020, that date has also been moved up to April 1, 2020.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is helping healthcare providers to handle the medical billing and coding aspect of COVID-10 testing and treatment. It is important to keep hospitals and practices open during this situation and so running the billing office is very important.
CMS helps the providers to handle the medical billing and coding aspects of COVID-19 testing and treatment and recently came up with the two Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes that laboratories can use to bill for certain COVID-19 diagnostic tests.
AMA announced that a new Procedural Terminology CPT code has been created which streamlines the Novel Coronavirus testing offered by hospitals, health systems and laboratories in the United States.
The code was effective as of March 13th, 2020 for use as the industry standard for reporting of COVID-19 tests across the nation’s health care system.
The hospitals and the medical billing are helping a lot and working hard to save us from this pandemic, but we should also take various precautions in order to avoid this virus.
Afterall, precautions are better than cure!
Let’s work together to make through this pandemic.
Stay healthy, stay safe!
