Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Preventive Services

Medicare has been reimbursing certain Preventive Services such as Annual Wellness Visits, Cardiovascular Disease Screenings, Diabetes Screening Tests, Screening Pelvic Exam, Glaucoma Screening, Smoking and Tobacco Cessation Counseling e.t.c for some time now.

Recently Medicare has started covering for Screening and Behavioral Counseling to reduce Alcohol misuse and Face-to-Face Behavioral Counseling for Obesity.

Alcohol misuse :

Effective for claims with dates of service October 14, 2011, and later, CMS shall cover annual alcohol screening, and for those that screen positive, up to four, brief, face-to-face behavioral counseling interventions per year for Medicare beneficiaries, including pregnant women.

Obesity Therapy :

Effective for claims with dates of service on or after November 29, 2011, CMS will allow coverage for Face-to-Face Behavioral Counseling for Obesity, 15 minutes, G0447, along with 1 of the ICD-9 codes for BMI 30.0-BMI 70 (V85.30- V85.39 and V85.41- V85.45), only when submitted with one of the following place of service (POS) codes: 11 – Physician’s Office, 22 – Outpatient Hospital, 49 – Independent Clinic or 71 - State or Local Public Health Clinic.

For more information on Medicare preventive services, visit http://www.cms.gov/PrevntionGenInfo on the CMS website.
For more information on Medicare Learning Network® (MLN) preventive services educational products, visit  http://www.cms.gov/MLNProducts/35_PreventiveServices.asp on the CMS website.

Source CMS

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