Medicare covers many products and services that are needed to manage chronic wounds. However, Medicare does not always cover the products for all indications, at the frequency that physician or the patient would like, etc. When a wound care clinic and/or practitioner believes that Medicare covers the product of service, but does not believe Medicare will cover it for a particular patient, that patient should be given an Advanced Beneficiary Notice (ABN). In addition, if a product or service, the practitioner is required to give the patient an ABN prior to treatment. If the patient is not given an ABN, and Medicare denies coverage of the product or service, the clinic and/or practitioner cannot collect payment from the patient. To help readers understand the new Medicare ABN, I interviewed Donna Cartwright, MPH, RHIA, CCS, RAC, one of new editorial board members for Today’s Wound Clinic. Donna is a professional coder who brings over 27 years … read more
Tag: Donna Cartwright
Practice Alert New ICD-10 Codes for MASD
In response to an initiative spearheaded by the Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nurses Society (WOCN), new diagnosis codes moisture-associated skin damage (MASD) were added to the current version of the International Classification of Disease, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM). These codes arc used globally to identify diseases and health conditions of patients in the United States. They are also linked to third-party payment for health care and related supplies … read more