Diagnosis
Denials involving diagnoses produce issues of “medical necessity.”1 Examine these denials carefully. Consider the service/procedure code when trying to formulate a response to the denial. The diagnosis code represents the reason for the service or procedure and might be a sign, symptom, or condition with which the patient presents. Medicare reimburses for procedures and services that are deemed “reasonable and necessary.”
In an effort to unify standards, Medicare has developed national coverage determinations (NCDs) to identify coverage requirements for frequent or problematic procedures or services. These coverage requirements can identify specific conditions (i.e. ICD-9-CM codes) for which the services or procedures are considered medically necessary. In the absence of a national coverage policy, an item or service could be covered at the discretion of Medicare contractors based on a local coverage determination (LCD), which varies by contractor.
Medical necessity denials often involve a mismatched or missing diagnosis. For example, a payor might deny a claim for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (92950) that is associated with a diagnosis code of congestive heart failure (428.0), despite this being the underlying condition that prompted the decline in the patient’s condition. The payor might only accept “cardiac arrest” (427.5) as the “medically necessary” diagnosis for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as this is the direct reason necessitating the procedure. After reviewing the documentation to ensure that the documentation supports the diagnosis, the claim can be resubmitted with a confirmed and corrected diagnosis code.
Initial-Request Response
While diagnoses can lead to medical necessity issues, not all medical necessity denials are due to incorrect diagnoses. Some “medical necessity” denials result from a failure to respond to a payor request. More specifically, if the “medical necessity” denial involves a covered evaluation and management visit, the denial is more likely the result of a failure to respond to a prepayment request for documentation.
Medicare typically issues prepayment requests for documentation for the following inpatient CPT codes: 99223, 99233, 99232, 99239, and 99292.1 If the documentation is not provided to the Medicare review department within a designated time frame (e.g. 30-45 days), the claim is automatically denied. The reason for denial is cited as being “not deemed a medical necessity.” These claims do not require electronic resubmission, and instead require submission of documentation to the Medicare appeals department. Once the supporting documentation is reviewed, reimbursement is issued.
Supportive Documentation
There are times when payor requests for additional information or documentation is handled in a timely fashion. However, the paper submission might have been incomplete, as the encounter note itself might not contain the cumulative information representing the reported service.
For example, other pieces of pertinent information may be obtained from the data or order section of the chart. If the individual responsible for gathering the requested documentation does not review it before submission, important or referenced entries may be missed, and the complexity of the billed service might be sacrificed. The provider should submit any entry with the same date as the requested documentation in support: labs, diagnostic testing, physician orders, patient instructions, nursing notes, resident notes, notes by other physicians in the same group, discharge summaries, etc.