by Wyn Staheli, Director of Content - innoviHealth
Feb 20th, 2020
Currently, healthcare providers testing patients for Coronavirus must use an unspecified code. To provide better tracking, on February 13, 2020, CMS announced the creation of a new HCPCS code. They said (emphasis added):
Healthcare providers who need to test patients for Coronavirus using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2019 Novel Coronavirus Real Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Test Panel may bill for that test using the newly created HCPCS code (U0001). The Medicare claims processing system will be able to accept this code on April 1, 2020 for dates of service on or after February 4, 2020.
This announcement came from CMS, but it is likely that other payers will also want providers to use the new code to ensure accurate tracking of this disease.
For more complete information, see the link found in the References section below.
References/Resources
About Wyn Staheli, Director of Content - innoviHealth
Wyn Staheli is the Director of Content Research for innovHealth. She has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry. With her degree in Management Information Systems (MIS), she has been a programmer for a large insurance carrier as well as a California hospital system. She is also the author and editor of many medical resource books and the founder of InstaCode Institute.
Quick, Current, Complete - www.findacode.com