Potential pitfall in Medicare billing: preventive services

Last week, we began looking at some of the common Medicare billing errors identified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in its most recent Medicare Quarterly Provider Compliance Newsletter. This week, we’ll focus on another of those pitfalls, this one associated with Medicare-covered preventive services.

In recent years, the CMS has expanded Medicare coverage of preventive services to include many recommended with a grade of A or B by the United States Preventive Services Task Force. These services (and their corresponding Medicare billing codes) include:

•    Annual alcohol misuse screening, 15 minutes (G0442)
•    Brief face-to-face behavioral counseling for alcohol misuse, 15 minutes (G0443)
•    Annual depression screening, 15 minutes (G0444)
•    Annual, face-to-face intensive behavioral therapy for cardiovascular disease, individual, 15 minutes (G0446)

Unfortunately, Medicare contractors have determined that insufficient documentation is causing many improper payments for these services. “Insufficient documentation” in this context means that something was missing from the medical records, such as:

•    No record of the amount of time spent providing a timed service
•    No record of the billed service itself
•    No physician’s signature on the medical record

To avoid these potential problems, CMS advises physicians to:

•    Record start and stop times, or the total time spent, when providing a timed service
•    Sign entries in medical records at the time of service
•    Learn about the non-covered indications and frequency limits for preventive services under Medicare

To the last point, you should know that:

•    Screening for depression is not covered when performed more than once in a 12-month period
•    Alcohol screening is not covered when performed more than once in a 12-month period
•    Brief face-to-face behavioral counseling interventions are not covered when performed more than once a day
•    Brief face-to-face behavioral counseling interventions are not covered when performed more than four times in a 12-month period.

You can find additional information and links to other relevant resources in the newsletter. Next week, we’ll look at the pitfalls associated with misuse of a common coding modifier.

– Kent Moore, Senior Strategist for Physician Payment for the American Academy of Family Physicians