[Histonet] Pathology Charges

[Bob Richmond]

Amy Self, Histology Lab Senior Tech, Tidelands Georgetown Memorial Hospital
in Georgetown, SC asks:

>>I am working on our billing process in hopes to improve things and make
it a little more efficient for us. We really have room for improvement.  I
feel there is lots of work that is being done that somehow can be
eliminated - I just don't know how or what to do to fix this.

>>How do other histology labs do their billing? Do you go back the next day
and audit charges to make sure they were entered correctly? Do you have a
bar coding system that tracks and charges your specimens and stains/test or
does someone sit and manually enter charges daily? Who is the person that
enters these charges - is it a tech, path secretary or a lab assistant? Are
the charges entered up front or on the back end once the report has been
finalized?<<
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I guess you're referring to CPT coding. It's important that the pathologist
who signs the case out does the CPT coding, because that pathologist knows
what all's been done. This takes very little time. The pathologist's coding
should then be checked by someone skilled in coding - the best of us miss
billable items rather often.

My experience on many pathology services was that the more assurances I get
that the pathologist is very meticulous with his coding and never misses
billing anything, the more undercoding and omitted items I'll find. Money
left on the table.

ICD-10 coding, in contrast, is a great time-waster, and should be done by a
coder with coding software a pathologist isn't allowed to have.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Maryville TN