Billing and Coding: Frequency of Hemodialysis

This Billing and Coding Article provides billing and coding guidance for Local
Coverage Determination (LCD) L35014, Frequency of Hemodialysis. Please refer
to the LCD for reasonable and necessary requirements.

This article outlines how to line item bill dialysis sessions for End Stage
Renal Disease (ESRD) patients. This does not address line item billing for
sessions associated with training or other modalities such as peritoneal
dialysis. This article does not change any other billing requirements for
dialysis claims. **Note:** This article uses the terms dialysis 'session' and
'treatment' interchangeably.  
  
**Coding Guidance**

**Notice:** It is not appropriate to bill Medicare for services that are not
covered (as described by the entire LCD) as if they are covered. When billing
for non-covered services, use the appropriate modifier.

CMS IOM Publication 100-04, Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Chapter 8
requires line item billing for all ESRD claims with dates of service (DOS) on
or after April 1, 2007. Each dialysis session performed should be reported on
a separate line.

CMS IOM Publication 100-02, Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, Chapter 11
discusses that ESRD facilities furnishing dialysis treatments in facility or
in the beneficiary's home are paid for up to three treatments per week.
Payment for additional treatments, defined as any treatments in excess of
three treatments per week, may be considered in addition to the ESRD PPS per
treatment payment amount paid for up to three treatments per week.

For monthly claims submitted with Bill Type 72X and Revenue Codes 0821 and
0881, three approaches of billing **per line** are available. Based on the
Patient's Plan of Care (POC), or other available medical documents, the
following scheme should be followed when billing sessions. **Note:** Dialysis
sessions in the patient's POC that are not furnished should not be billed.

  1. For dialysis sessions that have been furnished three times (3X) per week, each line should be 90999 without any modifiers appended. That is, when the hemodialysis-prescription is three times (3X) per week and each session is furnished, all of these sessions should be billed as 90999 (no modifier appended) and they will be paid as routine conventional dialysis up to 13/14 per month.
  2. For each dialysis session furnished in addition to the three sessions per week that do not include medical documentation supporting a reasonable and necessary determination for payment, each line for these sessions should be billed as 90999 CG. Examples of when this could occur include short, more frequent treatments furnished for the convenience of the patient or staff, etc. Additional sessions need to be billed as 90999 CG when medical documentation has not been submitted to support the extra sessions as reasonable and necessary. The CG modifier indicates that the facility attests the additional treatment is not reasonable and necessary and should not receive additional payment. Each line billed as 90999 CG will be denied. However, the use of the modifier is used for data analysis. Please refer to CR 9989, Implementation of Modifier CG for Type of Bill 72X, dated May 12, 2017.
  3. For each dialysis session furnished in addition to three sessions per week that includes medical documentation supporting a reasonable and necessary determination for payment, each line for these services should be billed as 90999 KX. These include medical conditions for acute and occasionally chronic conditions that have supporting documentation that the extra sessions are reasonable and necessary (e.g., through documents from recent hospital care, office visits, dialysis progress notes or MCP visits). These sessions must be reasonable and necessary for additional payment based on clinical conditions. On these claims, the 90999 lines without a modifier will be paid as 3X per week and those lines with 90999 KX will be considered for additional payments. Omission of the KX modifier will result in no additional payment for the line item. For diagnoses not listed in this article but felt to be reasonable and necessary, the KX modifier should be appended as well. A denial will occur on these lines, but the redetermination process (an appeal) will be available to submit supportive documentation for review.

The expectation is that these three scenarios will be seen on monthly claims,
i.e., claims with 90999 lines only, or those with lines of 90999 mixed with
90999 CG or KX modifier appended. Ongoing data analysis may trigger provider
specific requests for documentation should unusual patterns occur, i.e.,
claims with only lines of 90999 KX submitted.

Please note that the POC and other supporting medical documentation to justify
any of the line item sessions will be most important and may be requested.

Please see L35014 for instructions when clinical conditions outside those
listed in the available diagnoses should occur.

Please see L35014 for Documentation Requirements and Utilization Guidelines.