Changes or modifications to the base payment rates to allow for differences in providers’ situations that affect their costs of giving medical services. These adjustments are to accommodate differences in local prices for products and services, delivery of specialized types of care, or atypical characteristics of beneficiaries.
Tag: USA
Adjuvant technique
Additional technique(s) that may be required at the time a bypass graft is created to improve patency of the lower extremity autogenous or synthetic bypass graft or fistula. Use of CPT codes 35685 and 35686 are add-on codes and should be reported with a code for the primary procedure performed.
Administration
Policies, procedures, and management of functions related to the operation of an insurance plan by the insurance company after it becomes effective. In some situations, the insurance claims processing and payment may be administered by a separate entity.
Administrative agent
See: insurance carrier.
Administrative allowance
Fee paid to an agent or administrator for overseeing and managing an insured’s policy that would normally be handled by the insurance company.
Administrative code sets
1. Code sets that characterize a general business situation, rather than a medical condition or service. 2. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a phrase that refers to nonclinical or nonmedical code sets. Compare with medical code sets.
Administrative costs
General phrase that refers to Medicare operating expenses (salaries, facilities, equipment, rent, utilities) and the federal share of the states’ expenditures for administration of the Medicaid program
Administrative data
Information that is collected, processed, and stored in automated information systems. Administrative data include enrollment or eligibility information, claims information, and managed care encounters. The claims and encounters may be for hospital and other facility services, professional services, prescription drug services, laboratory services, and so on.
Administrative director (AD)
In workers’ compensation insurance, the head of the Division of Workers’ Compensation.
Administrative expenses
Operating costs incurred by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of the Treasury in administering the supplemental medical insurance (SMI) program and the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code relating to the collection of contributions. Such administrative expenses, which are paid from the SMI trust fund, include expenditures for contractors to determine costs of, and make payments to, providers, as well as salaries and expenses of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).