Healthcare Industry Articles

Welcome to our news and healthcare industry updates. Here you will find monthly “blogs” written by our CEO, Terry Fletcher, including information relevant to medical billing and coding, compliance, including important news and updates from AMA®, CMS, OIG, Commercial Payers, and other Healthcare industry authoritative resources.

Terry will also post a quarterly “Top Ten” Q&A Blog that comes from her weekly CodeCast™ Podcast, where she podcasts on the Top Ten Tuesday membership questions and answers frequently.

Please check back frequently as new articles are posted monthly.

Working From Home Is Not the Same as Having a Medical Practice

September 16, 2026

The COVID-19 public health emergency dramatically changed how healthcare was delivered. Physicians and other qualified healthcare professionals who had spent their careers working from medical offices suddenly found themselves seeing ...

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Provider Billing Compliance: Is your practice getting it right or wrong?

June 3, 2026

The original version of this article was written by Stephanie Allard RHIT, CPC, CMPA, and this edited and updated version was posted with permission from Stephanie Allard Consulting, LLC. A ...

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New Medicare ABN 2026

May 29, 2026

Many of you have asked about the new ABN (Medicare waiver) for 2026. See below for details and effective date. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) periodically releases ...

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AI (Artificial Intelligence) in healthcare has both pros and cons

February 10, 2026

As healthcare organizations move deeper into the adoption of AI tools in 2026, the conversation has shifted from whether to use AI to how responsibly it can be implemented. Coding ...

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Telehealth Flexibilities Extended through 2027

February 4, 2026

The federal government experienced a brief shutdown from January 20 to February 3, 2026. Upon reopening, Congress extended temporary Medicare telehealth flexibilities until December 31, 2027, and made permanent changes ...

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Top 10 Coding and Compliance Q&A for April 2025

April 30, 2025

Here at Terry Fletcher Consulting, Inc., we get a slew of coding, billing and compliance questions on a daily basis. Our Coding Corner Membership clients send over their challenging questions ...

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Telehealth 2025: Audio-Only First Quarter

January 17, 2025

We have been receiving many inquiries and emails regarding the billing of Audio Only Telehealth for Medicare and Commercially Insured patients starting January 1st, 2025. The published guidance is muddy ...

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Telehealth 2025: The Final Rule

December 2, 2024

CMS is set to reinstate certain pre-pandemic telehealth policies if Congress doesn’t step in ASAP. CMS issued the calendar year (CY) 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) final rule on ...

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Complexity Add-on Code G2211

July 29, 2024

Effective January 1, 2024, complexity add-on code G2211 may be submitted with Evaluation and Management (E/M) office or outpatient (O/O) visits, 99202-99215. G2211 includes services enabling practitioners to build longitudinal ...

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Telehealth Fact Sheet and E/M Tips for 2024

May 13, 2024

As we all know the PHE, public health emergency, ended on May 11th, 2023, but the confusion on how to report Telehealth services continues to live on. When Medicare published ...

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Reporting SDoH G0136 in compliance

April 6, 2024

(updated 4/6/2024) – This is also posted on the NAMAS.co website 2024 brought new HCPCS codes that Medicare, Medicare Advantage and some 3rd-party Commercial plans that they will now pay ...

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How to Interpret the SDoH Assessment Appropriately

February 26, 2024

2024 brought new HCPCS codes that Medicare, Medicare Advantage and some 3rd-party Commercial plans that they will now pay for. One of those codes is the G0136; that is the ...

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Telehealth Fact Sheet and E/M Tips for 2024

January 4, 2024

As we all know the PHE, public health emergency, ended on May 11th, 2023, but the confusion on how to report Telehealth services continues to live on. When Medicare published ...

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Pre-Op Visits vs. Pre-Op Clearance Visits: Which Are Billable?

August 28, 2023

A question comes up often regarding billing for pre-op visits. Should we? Or shouldn’t we? There is conflicting published guidance on this question from different sources. First, this depends on ...

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Prescription Drug Management: The Moderate Risk element of E/M Coding

May 19, 2023

Appropriate documentation of prescription drug management continues to be an opportunity for many physicians. Doctors need to know that simply adding the current medication list to the progress note is ...

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OCR Issues a 90-day transition for HIPAA Compliant Telehealth Platforms

April 26, 2023

Under the PHE (Public Health Emergency), non-HIPAA compliant platforms (like smartphone applications FaceTime and Skype) were allowed as long as they were not public facing (i.e., TikTok, Vimeo, etc). But ...

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OCR Issues a 90-day transition for HIPAA Compliant Telehealth Platforms

April 21, 2023

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(PHE) Public Health Emergency set to end on May 11th

February 6, 2023

An announcement on Monday, January 30th, by the OMB (Office of Management and Budget), and the White House, stated that they plan to end the COVID-19 national emergency and public ...

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