October 2010
Welcome to The Connection Online
This publication contains important information, including updates to policies and procedures, for physicians, dentists, other health care and dental professionals, facilities and their staff.
Editions are published in February, April, June, August, October and December.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to receive email notifications when new editions are available.
Note: Other important updates can be found in our What's New section.
Enhancements to our Treatment Cost Estimator tool
This quarter, members enrolled on select consumer directed products will be able to access procedure-specific out-of-pocket cost estimates, using the Treatment Cost Estimator tool on myAsuris.com.
Medicare
Please review these important Medicare-related updates:
Products and Programs
Policies
Changes to our medical policies are listed below. Learn how policies are reviewed. Our Coding Toolkit includes codes that require clinical information (updated monthly), a complete list of code groupings and our Correct Code Editor (updated quarterly).
Medical
Reimbursement
- Assistant at surgery reimbursement
- Developmental testing during pediatric examinations
- Myoelectric prosthetic components reviewed for medical necessity
- Photocoagulation of macular drusen
- Pretreatment day prior to surgery included in global service period
- Preventive services HCPCS code update
- Qualitative drug screening codes
Medication
- Prior authorization change for glucose meters and test strips
- Reporting intravitreal use of bevacizumab
Summaries of recent changes (PDF) and detailed policies are available in our Medication Policy Manual at http://blue.regence.com/policy/medication/
View our group and Individual products Preferred Medication List/Formulary.
Search the Asuris TruAdvantage + Rx and Medicare Part D formulary.