CMS requires that any Medicare service provided or ordered must be authenticated by the author -- the one who provided or ordered that service. Certain types of signatures (e.g., illegible signatures, initials) may require the addition of a “signature attestation statement” or a signature log to the documentation to ensure the signature’s authentication. If documentation submitted for medical review does not contain a signature at all, then only a signature attestation will be accepted.

Federal regulations require that MACs maintain payment responsibility for managed care enrollees who elect hospice. 

While a hospice election is in effect, certain types of claims may be submitted to the MAC by either the hospice provider or a provider treating an illness not related to the terminal condition. The claims are subject to Medicare rules of payment.

Claims for inpatient hospital and skilled nursing facility (SNF) services have priority over claims for home health services because beneficiaries cannot receive home care while they are institutionalized. A beneficiary cannot be institutionalized and simultaneously receive home care.

An “order” is a communication from the treating physician/practitioner requesting that a diagnostic test be performed for a beneficiary. The order may conditionally request an additional diagnostic test for a particular beneficiary if the result of the initial diagnostic test ordered yields to a certain value determined by the treating physician/practitioner (e.g., if test X is negative, then perform test Y). An order may be delivered via the following forms of communication: 

Indicate the referring or ordering provider’s information in the section titled Name of referring provider or other source (Item 17 & 17b of the CMS-1500 paper claim form or the 2310A Referring Provider Loop, segments NM101 using qualifier DN or DK, NM103-NM105 [Name], NM108 using [XX] qualifier, and NM109 [NPI] of the 837P electronic claim) as indicated below.

Medicare secondary payer is used when another insurer is responsible for paying insurance benefits first for Medicare beneficiaries. Medicare may be responsible to make a secondary payment; however, the law provides many different coverage scenarios so each one must be reviewed individually. MSP information may be found on the CMS website. 

No. In order for the service to qualify as "incident to," an initial encounter must have occurred between the physician and the patient, and a course of treatment established by the physician. In this situation, services performed by the PA do not meet the “incident to” requirement and would not qualify because this is a new patient. The claim would be billed listing the PA as the performing provider.

Reference

We do not issue benefit exhaust letters. This information will appear on your remittance advice. We’ve included the link to X12, which contains links to various code lists, including claim adjustment reason codes (CARCs); remittance advice remark codes (RARCs); provider adjustment reason codes; claim status codes; and much more.

Examples of what you may see on the remittance advice for benefits exhaust are listed below:

The billing entity's NPI should be reported in the 2010AA Billing Provider Loop of the 837P electronic claim or Item 33a of the CMS-1500 paper claim form. 

Important note: The NPI of the billing provider is required on all claims. Paper claims will be rejected as unprocessable and electronic claims may be rejected if:

Any visit provided during a hospitalization with a surgery (except critical care and emergency room visits) by the physician who performed the surgery would not be separately billable, as they would be considered part of the global care (including post-op) of the patient. Other providers involved can bill for appropriate visits.