Laboratory Billing
The laboratory billing process is the interaction between a clinical lab or pathology group and the insurance company (payer). The entirety of this laboratory billing interaction is known as the billing cycle, which can take anywhere from several days to several months to complete, and require several interactions before a resolution is reached. The entire process is the function of what is commonly known as the laboratory coding/billing/collections department.
Laboratory billing starts with laboratory coding. After a lab service is provided, diagnosis and procedure codes are assigned. These codes assist the insurance company in determining coverage and medical necessity of the services. The codes used for laboratory billing are the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, usually called by the short-form name International Classification of Diseases (ICD), and the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes.
The ICD is the international “standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes.” The current version is ICD-9, with ICD 10 scheduled to become the new standard on Oct. 15, 2015. It is maintained by the World Health Organization, the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations System.
The ICD is designed as a health care classification system, providing a system of diagnostic codes for classifying diseases, including nuanced classifications of a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or disease.
The CPT code set is a medical code set maintained by the American Medical Association through the CPT Editorial Panel. The CPT (copyright protected by the AMA) describes medical, surgical, and diagnostic services and is designed to communicate uniform information about medical services and procedures among physicians, coders, patients, accreditation organizations, and payers for administrative, financial, and analytical purposes.
Once the procedure and diagnosis codes are determined, the lab bill enters the laboratory collections/revenue cycle management phase. The payer is usually billed electronically by formatting the claim as an ANSI 837 file and using Electronic Data Interchange to submit the claim file to the payer directly or via a clearinghouse. The payer processes the claims usually by medical claims examiners or medical claims adjusters. For higher dollar amount claims, the insurance company has medical directors review the claims and evaluate their validity for payment using rubrics (procedure) for patient eligibility, provider credentials, and medical necessity.
Approved claims are reimbursed for a certain percentage of the billed services. These rates are pre-negotiated between the health care provider and the insurance company. Failed claims are denied or rejected and notice is sent to provider. Most commonly, denied or rejected claims are returned to providers in the form of Explanation of Benefits (EOB) or Electronic Remittance Advice.
Upon receiving the denial message the provider must decipher the message, reconcile it with the original claim, make required corrections and resubmit the claim. This exchange of claims and denials may be repeated multiple times until a claim is paid in full, or the provider relents and accepts an incomplete reimbursement.
One Lab’s Revenue Loss Due to CMS’ Slow Process
CEO SUMMARY: How is it that some commercial payers for one lab running molecular tests have continued to pay the lab for tests it has run this year, but contractors for CMS have so far failed to pay? That’s the question one lab CEO is asking. Both the commercial payers and the CMS contr…
How CMS ‘Mismanaged’ Pricing of Molecular Tests
CEO SUMMARY: CMS and its contractors had ample opportunity to implement a new reimbursement system but failed to act in a timely manner, stated an expert familiar with the problem. The result is that laboratories, particularly those that have one or two proprietary molecular tests, are be…
Medicare Taken to Task about Molecular Test Pricing Method
EDITOR’S NOTE: Submitted by Lâle White, CEO of XIFIN, Inc., of Carlsbad, California, this letter describes the problems caused by the Medicare program’s failure, as of January 1, 2013, to be ready to process and reimburse lab test claims for more than 100 new mo…
Palmetto: ‘We Are Processing & Paying Clean Claims without Undue Delay’
SEEING THAT PALMETTO, GBA, the nation’s largest Medicare Administration Contractor, seems to be at the center of the controversy over how Medicare is to pay for molecular pathology (MoPath) tests, THE DARK REPORT sent a list of questions to Palmetto Vice President Mike Barlow. Here…
Experts Say Labs May Start to Receive MDx Payments
CEO SUMMARY: In the fourth month of the current year, there is plenty of confusion and uncertainty over how the Medicare program will establish prices for the new molecular CPT codes and when both government and private payers will begin to regularly reimburse laboratorie…
Price Cuts, Long Delays in Payment Are Expected
CEO SUMMARY: In addition to a steep cut in the 88305 CPT code, anatomic pathology laboratories can expect cuts in the payment from Medicare for molecular and prostate biopsy testing. Two national experts in lab billing and reimbursement warn labs to expect confusion in how both public and…
Labs Have Questions about Prostate Biopsy Policy
CEO SUMMARY: How will pathology laboratories respond to the publication of revised policies in how laboratories should file Medicare Part B claims for prostate biopsies? Not only will there be a sharp drop in the reimbursement paid for a 12-core prostate biopsy, but labs may be at increas…
Changed Medicare Policy Adds to Regulatory Risk
CEO SUMMARY: When Medicare’s National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) manual took effect on January 1, 2012, it contained a significant change in how prostate biopsy claims are to be coded. This change was widely overlooked by the pathology profession and even dismissed entirely for it…
Prostate Biopsy Claims Affected by Policy Change
CEO SUMMARY: Quietly, with no fanfare and little advance public notice, the Medicare program is taking steps to change reimbursement policy for prostate biopsies. On August 7, 2012, Palmetto GBA adopted the new policy published on January 1, 2012, by the National Correct …
New BlueCard Policies Affect Lab Test Claims
CEO SUMMARY: This new policy from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) becomes effective on October 14, 2012. No longer can a local lab provide service to a member under the BlueCard program and be paid by the local plan in the region where the service was provided….
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
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