Your Physician and PECOS
PECOS stands for Provider Enrollment Chain and Ownership System.
It is a Medicare registry that has all the providers registered with their
details and NPI numbers and what they do for Medicare.
I learned today that if a physician is not enrolled in PECOS
and refers a patient for radiology or ultrasound study, the imaging
center does not get paid. Not sure how long this has been in effect
but recently we got denials for things like echocardiograms and
nuclear stress tests on traditional Medicare patients referred by
physicians who have always referred us. We were told by Medicare
that these referral physicians had not updated or were not in PECOS.
If you think your physician might not be in PECOS he may visit
and register.
Regards
Amin H. Karim MD