Journalists working on stories related to high-risk pregnancies or the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine can contact Greg Phillips, Director of Communications, at press@smfm.org for referrals to MFM experts and to request additional information. The press office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM ET.
The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) Coding Committee: Vanita Jain, MD; Amie Hollard, MD; Steve Rad MD; Trish Malisch, CCS-P, CPC; Fadi Bsat, MD. Testing for chromosome abnormalities should be an informed patient choice, based on information from a medical provider accounting for the... Continue Reading
Brar B, Iriye B, and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine Practice Management & Coding Committees The Problem Over the last four decades, twin pregnancies have increased from 18.9 per 1,000 births in 1980 to 32.6 per 1,000 births in 2018. (1) With this increase in incidence... Continue Reading
If a patient has a diagnosis of obesity (BMI ≥ 30) O99.21__ (obesity complicating pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium) is an accepted indication for a detailed fetal anatomy survey (CPT 76811) according to published guidelines. To determine BMI in a pregnancy affected by obesity, we... Continue Reading
Utah law removes women from their proper role as decision makers Comprehensive reproductive health care includes abortion care. There is ample evidence that timely access to safe and legal abortion improves health outcomes, and barriers to access worsen outcomes. These harms have an especially... Continue Reading
Effective April 1, 2022, there is a new series of ICD-10 codes for COVID-19 (Z28.31__) that was created to indicate that a patient is unvaccinated or ‘under-immunized’. There is also a new code (effective 4/1/2022) to identify patients who are ‘under-immunized’ status for... Continue Reading
In response to recent questions, this month’s Coding Tip is focused upon updating coding guidance for when a PR interval is performed. This Coding Tip is an update from prior guidance on this topic published in July 2017. The PR interval is often performed in attempt to identify early forms... Continue Reading
The SMFM Coding Committee received a recent inquiry regarding the usage of ICD-10 codes O09.512 and O09.522 when submitting charges after completing a 76811 exam on nulliparous and multiparous AMA patients in the second trimester. It was communicated that this family of ICD-10 codes used for this... Continue Reading
Washington, DC ― Research shows that pregnant people on Medicaid are more likely to have worse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm birth, compared to those who have private insurance. When a baby is born too early — or prematurely — it puts the infant at greater risk of health... Continue Reading
The Coding Committee recently received a question regarding how to bill for Genetic Counselors within the MFM practice. The Committee felt this was an opportune time to review coding & billing practices in this scenario. Coding for Genetic Counselors is not uniform across states and... Continue Reading
In ICD-10 trimester-based coding is utilized to identify the trimester during the encounter. Instructions about obstetric trimester-based billing is found in Chapter 15. The CMS and the NCHS (within the US Federal Government’s DHHS) provides these instructions in their ICD-10 CM manual. ... Continue Reading
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Effective each year on October 1, additions, deletions, and updates to the ICD-10-CM code set are published. This year, no significant changes were made to Chapter 15, the obstetrics chapter. However, there are a few new codes that could affect the practice of Maternal Fetal Medicine. The... Continue Reading
