The agency provides specific guidance on what constitutes an acceptable "signature" for documents subject to review for Medicare payment or by an audit contractor. See to it that your documents match by complying with one of the following options:
You need to ensure it's legible The simplest signature and most difficult to ensure is a legible full-name signature or a legible signature using first initial and last name.
Unluckily, you will not find many physicians or non-physician practitioners who have a legible signature and you most certainly won't want to stake your payment on it. This is when you need to turn to option 2.
You should accept printed name with scribble
If you cannot count on ordering physicians and non physician practitioner to legibly sign requisitions, you do have an alternative choice. Other personnel like a circulating nurse can print the full name of the ordering physician/NPP on the requisition. After this the physician/NPP can initial next to or above the full printed name. In this instance, the initials don't have to be legible to count as a legitimate signature.
Alternatively, if you submit a signature log or attestation statement that identifies the signer of an illegible signature, you can meet the signature requirement this way.
Don't wait. Just do it. There's no doubt that getting referring physicians and non physician practitioners to comply with Medicare's new policy for acceptable paper requisition signatures will be tough, however compliance is important if pathologists and laboratories are to continue to be paid for their work.
For the full instruction on this and for other specialty-specific articles to assist your pathology coding, sign up for a good medical coding resource guide like Coding Institute.
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