Outpatient Coding and Charge Opportunities that Still Plague Us

The changes Medicare made to the outpatient payment system when APCs were introduced drastically changed the way hospitals prepared claims for payment and the workflow of the outpatient arenas. Medicare continues to tweak their process to cut cost and improve the bottom line. Sometimes the Medicare changes cause the facilities to have to spend money on additional or enhanced billing software and it may require an additional employee. These changes often cause rework of the claims on the backend.