Not automatically updating your fee ticket/superbill annually

The 7^th common mistake occurs as a result of your Fee Tickets / Superbills not being updated on a regular basis.

Updating the fee ticket should really be an ongoing process, but unfortunately, we find that this is a lost discipline in many instances. The reason it must be an ongoing process is because the codes that are utilized for billing are revised twice a year. On January 1st, the CPT and HCPCS codes are revised; this includes additions, deletions and revisions to verbiage. Then again on October 1st, the ICD-9 diagnosis codes are updated with additions, deletions and revisions.

A very typical scenario that we frequently observe is when hospital employees become too busy with day-to-day activities, they can become consumed just with running their departments. The process of revising and updating the fee tickets is a low priority, and consequently can be overlooked or placed on the back burner.

A few of the problems symptomatic of outdated fee tickets are:

1. Delayed payment of claims,
2. Increased denial of claims,
3. Increase of “no payments”.