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The rules say that plans must pay for a medical service or item if regular Medicare would pay for it in this case. 
You can find this rule at 42 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Section 422.101. 
 
The rules say that effective for claims with dates of service July 1, 2007 and after, the non-Outpatient 
Prospective Payment System (OPPS) Outpatient Code Editor (OCE) will be integrated into the OPPS OCE. 
This integration will result in the routing of all institutional outpatient claims, including non-OPPS hospital 
claims, through a single integrated OCE eliminating the need to update two separate OCE software packages 
on a quarterly basis. The integrated OCE does not change the current logic that is applied to outpatient bill 
types that already pass through the OPPS OCE software. It merely expands the software usage to include non-
OPPS hospitals. This new software product will be referred to as the Integrated OCE (I/OCE). The I/OCE 
instructions and specifications are provided via Recurring Update Notifications. They are also posted on the 
Web at the following address 
https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/OutpatientCodeEdit/OCEQtrReleaseSpecs. You can find this 
information in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Internet-Only Manual, Publication 100-04, 
Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Chapter 4, Section 40.1. 
 
The rules say that the Correct Coding Initiative was developed to promote correct coding and to control 
improper coding leading to inappropriate payment in Part B claims. The Coding Policy Manual also explains 
what is referred to as Column One/Column Two Correct Coding and Mutually Exclusive Edits. These are code 
pairs that should not be reported together. Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) subject all line items 
for the same beneficiary, same National Provider Identifier (NPI), and same date of service to National Correct 
Coding Initiative (NCCI) edits. The National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) File Formats continue to 
include a Correct Coding Modifier Indicator (CCMI) for the Column One / Column Two Correct Coding edit 
file. This indicator determines whether an NCCI Procedure to Procedure (PTP)-associated modifier causes the 
code pair to bypass the edit. You can find this rule in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Internet 
Only Manual, Publication 100-04, Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Chapter 23, Section 20.9. 
 
The rules say that I/OCE edit 62 is returned when a procedure code has a not recognized by Medicare for 
OPPS indicator. Services with a status indicator of B always return edit 62. Edit 62 is only bypassed if the bill type is 022x or 023x with or without condition code 07. The disposition for this edit is Return to Provider 
(RTP) which means that the entire claim is rejected and returned to the provider for correction. 
 
The rules say that I/OCE edit 40 is returned when a procedure is identified as part of another procedure on the 
claim coded on the same day, where the modifier was either not coded or is not an NCCI modifier. Only the 
code in column 2 of a code pair is rejected; the column 1 code of the pair is not marked as an edit. The 
disposition for this edit is Line Item Rejection (LIR) which means that the individual line item is rejected for 
payment. This line item can be corrected and resubmitted, but it cannot be appealed. 
 
You can find this information in the Integrated OCE Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 
Specifications V23.1 Effective April 1, 2022. 
 
If you want to read these Medicare rules, you can go to this website www.medicareappeal.com. 
 
The Plan contract says that the Plan covers items and services in accordance with Medicare rules.