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.

If you are unable to obtain the relevant medical record documentation for review, please contact the nurse or education specialist as outlined in your ADR/record request letter for assistance. 

CMS continually strives to reduce improper payment of Medicare claims per Social Security Act Sections 1833(e), 1815(a), 1862(a)(1)(A) and 1842(p)(4). As a Medicare administrative contractor (MAC), First Coast is tasked with preventing inappropriate Medicare payments. Contractors use data analysis as the foundation for detection of aberrancies or patterns of apparent inappropriate billing, which may be potential claim payment errors. Data analysis is the comparison of claim information and other related data to identify potential errors.

The POS code should be entered in the 2400 Place of Service Code loop (segment SV105) of the 837P electronic claim (Item 24B on the CMS-1500 paper claim form).

It is important to ensure you bill the appropriate POS code on all claims to avoid potential overpayments. It is recommended you review your claims and systems for proper billing of the place of service codes.

There are potential civil monetary penalties for violating the Medicare limiting charge. The limiting charge applies to non-participating providers in the Medicare Part B program when they do not accept assignment and the beneficiary is not responsible for any billed amounts in excess of the limiting charge for a covered service.