Better Medicare Billing: A Critical Skill for Chiropractors

The relationship between doctors of chiropractic and Medicare is, well…complicated. On the one hand, Medicare pays doctors of chiropractic about a half-billion dollars per year. On the other hand, Medicare is consistently named as one of the biggest headaches for practicing DCs, with complicated rules and an extremely limited range of services covered. A major initiative of ACA is to expand Medicare coverage for chiropractors, a goal that is thwarted by the discouragingly high rate of errors DCs make when billing Medicare. One recent government report found that chiropractic services had the highest rate of “improper payments” among all outpatient services covered by Medicare. Understanding how to properly bill Medicare is an essential skill for chiropractors to assure compliance with Federal rules, as well as avoiding potentially expensive fines for Medicare miscoding. This session will provide an introduction to Medicare billing basics and advice on avoiding potentially costly pitfalls.

Learning objective: Recognize common mistakes when billing (or when not billing) Medicare, and know the action needed to correct them.

The following states require the participant to enter the course approval number on their certificate:

• California: View the list of course approval numbers and categories for California approved courses.
• Missouri: View the list of course approval numbers and categories for Missouri approved courses.

Please note: This is a recording of a 2021 Engage conference session. Licensed Doctors of Chiropractic should not reuse this credit for licensure renewal if earned during the conference.