G codes for Med B

First and foremost, as you can see in the picture, MRSA and C-Diff (the stuffed animals of course) joined us for our first huddle. I'm sure they will pop in and out occasionally! Our initial HUDDLE was taken over by the fact that Medicare has yet again changed guidelines for billing. Surprised? On our unit we maybe get a Med B patient once everyone couples months, but we felt it necessary to review what these new guidelines were and possible assessment tools that they be beneficial to add to our OT department. 

According to AOTA, as of July 1st CMS is requiring functional report for all OT reimbursement. Therefore, a therapist must choose a patient's primary functional limitation to report a G-code and modifier on. The functional areas in which OTs work on are the following: mobility, changing and maintaining body position, attention, memory, carrying/moving/handling objects, etc. Once a primary G-Code has been chosen for a particular limitation, a modifier that reflects a patient's score/severity on a particular functional assessment tool should be identified. AOTA provides a link to a great website that provides conversions for G-Codes and a search engine for assessment tools.

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As a team, and personally, this is a great change. Even though it is a hassle to change our initial evaluation step and what may be second nature to use...but it's great that the hard work we are doing in all areas of occupational therapy will be documented with codes and functional assessments that prove change. We discussed through our huddle, and over sweet snacks I may add, that this change will soon enough come over to Med A so we might a well find positives in it now. 

Functionally yours,
m