For those of you who have not tapped into the amazing wealth of information generously shared by Frank Cohen, go to his site now and see what he has that could help you.
Most recently Frank analyzed the October 2009 NCCI Edits Release 15.3 and organized the information into meaningful categories as well as providing an executive summary.
As a reminder, the CMS website tells us:
The CMS developed the National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) to promote national correct coding methodologies and to control improper coding leading to inappropriate payment in Part B claims. The CMS developed its coding policies based on coding conventions defined in the American Medical Association’s CPT manual, national and local policies and edits, coding guidelines developed by national societies, analysis of standard medical and surgical practices, and a review of current coding practices. The CMS annually updates the National Correct Coding Initiative Coding Policy Manual for Medicare Services (Coding Policy Manual). The Coding Policy Manual should be utilized by carriers and FIs as a general reference tool that explains the rationale for NCCI edits.
Per Frank’s assessment of the 2009 changes effective on October 1:
There are 706 terminated edit pairs but once again, around half have been terminated retrospectively. Two are terminated back to last quarter (7.1.09), 357 back to April, 2009 and 27 all the way back to January, 2009. This means that, if you were denied payment on edit pairs that are part of this last over the past few quarters, you should be able to resubmit and get paid. The big hitters for terminated codes in both column 1 and column 2 fell within the surgical code category (520 and 513, respectively).
For more information, go to Frank’s site here, go to the Download tab and you will see the link at the top of the page.
