Your hospital just opened a new service line: outpatient spinal fusions. The first cervical spinal fusions were done last week; your coders coded 10 of them. Several weeks later (and 35 more fusions done), you get a memo from the business office stating there are denials because the procedure (the CPT code for the fusion) is a status indicator of C. She wants you to review the code to see if coded correctly. You determine they were coded correctly. Each account is about $35,000. What are some possible solutions and/or recommendations?

Resources:

Davis, N. & Doyle, B. Revenue Cycle Management Best Practices, Second Edition