ASC Coding, Billing & Collections

AudioEducator will host an ICD-10 webinar as part of its audio conferences that will focus on gastroenterology codes.

Sovrin Health Systems, a revenue cycle management company, has merged with Paramount Management Services, a company that provides consolidation services and billing and collections management, to form a full-scale management services organization.

Austin, Texas-based EmployerDirect, a company that helps large self-insured employers improve employee planned medical procedures, now offers SurgeryPlus, a supplemental healthcare benefit that reduces costs of planned medical procedures by 30 to 50 percent through bundled case rates.

In a Physicians Practice article, Lucien W. Roberts, a Virginia-based consultant, lays out six questions for providers to ask their clearinghouses as they prepare for the ICD-10 transition.

The Certified Coder Academy, a coder exam preparation service for AHIMA and AAPC certification, added ICD-10-CM and PCS course information to its current curriculum.

National health spending grew by 3.9 percent in July 2013 compared with July 2012, returning to historic lows from a year-over-year growth rate of 4.3 percent in June, according to a report from Altarum Institute, a nonprofit health systems research…

Obama administration officials said Tuesday the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act "data hub" is complete and ready for the launch of the new health insurance exchanges, according to a report from The Washington Post.

ICD-10-CM will require greater specificity from coders and physicians to meet the requirements of the new set, and it may make some cases simpler for coders, according to a report in the Journal of AHIMA.

Atlanta-based Streamline Health has added dual coding abilities to its eCAC and eAbstract applications within the Collabra suite.

Most physicians are confident that their practice will be able to make a transition to ICD-10, according to the "2013 Physician Sentiment Index," by Epocrates and athenahealth.