[Regina]

I hope someone can settle a discussion in my office. We often have patients on oxygen who are on private insurance, then turn 65, switch to Medicare, and fail to inform us. My understanding is that they need current testing.
So, say a patient became Medicare primary July 1, 2010. We are just getting denials from the private insurance. The bill date is 7/8/10. There is no current testing. We inform the patient and physician that they need to be tested. So, technically, the CMN start date is 7/1/10. But, the testing wasn't done until say, 7/15/10. Do we leave the start date as 7/1/10, and just let Medicare deny the July rental, or do we make the start date 7/15/10?
Any and all opinions are welcome!

[leejgbt]

The rule is that the CMN would not start until the qualifying test was done. Therefore, this is when you should start billing. If you did not get an ABN, and how could you, then this is the best you can do.

[lsologuren]

The start date for billing Medicare would be 07/15/10, the date of the qualifying O2 test.

[Michelle Gable]

Your DOS cannot be before your test date so your new DOS would be 7/15/10.