The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer programs to help prevent heart disease.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), “heart disease can often be prevented by identifying risk factors and making healthy lifestyle choices.”
“Help your Medicare patients reduce their risk,” the agency suggests. “Recommend appropriate preventive services, including cardiovascular disease screening tests and intensive behavioral therapy for cardiovascular disease.”
CMS is promoting awareness of heart disease through three programs this February and these include the following:
Medicare covers a full range of preventive services to help keep beneficiaries healthy and help find problems early, when treatment is most effective. Beneficiaries should always ask their doctor which of these services is right for them:
You can obtain this checklist online at: https://www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11420-Preventive-Services-Card.pdf.
There is also a wealth of information on CMS preventive services at: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Prevention/PrevntionGenInfo/medicare-preventive-services/MPS-QuickReferenceChart-1.html.
Under the CMS cardiovascular disease screening tests, the following information can be found:
HCPCS/CPT Codes:
80061 – Lipid panel: this panel must include the following:
ICD-10-CM Code: Z13.6 Encounter for Screening for Cardiovascular Disorders
The Million Hearts® is a sponsored program by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that is promoted by CMS. It has a goal to save one million lives in five years through increased awareness, education, tools, and data. The CMS key messages under “Million Hearts” are to take control of your heart health and to:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a dedicated website regarding heart disease. The CDC notes that in the United States, the most common type of heart disease is coronary artery disease or CAD, which can lead to heart attack (myocardial infarction). One can greatly reduce your risk for CAD through lifestyle changes and, in some cases, medication.
Some interesting heart disease facts published by the CDC include the following:
Also, at this CDC Heart Disease website you can find the following areas:
Visit the following to access this information and more at: https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/
Let’s not forget from a clinical coding perspective that heart disease in ICD-10-CM is located in Chapter 9, representing Diseases of the Circulatory System (I00-I99). There are specific codes for the type of myocardial infarction, and for 2018, new codes were added.
I’m impressed with all the great heart disease information, tools and resources offered to our healthcare community. Let’s take advantage of these and take heart!
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) operates a surveillance platform called the Fraud Prevention System (FPS) that analyzes Medicare claims across the full
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