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Therapy Threshold Amounts for 2022

Published on 

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Question:

Are there any updates for rehabilitative therapy services’ threshold amounts for the coming year?

Answer:

Yes. MLN MM12470 (link) details updates to the annual per-beneficiary incurred expenses amounts now call the KX modifier thresholds and related policy for CY 2022. These thresholds were previously known as “therapy caps.” For CY 2022, the KX modifier threshold amounts are:

  1. $2,150 for Physical Therapy (PT) and Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) services combined, and
  2. $2,150 for Occupational Therapy (OT) services.

Providers can track a patient’s year-to-date therapy amounts on Medicare eligibility screens. The KX modifier must be appended to therapy services’ line-items on the claim for medically necessary therapy services above the threshold amounts. The medical necessity of services beyond the threshold amount must be justified by appropriate documentation in the medical record. Services provided beyond the threshold that are not billed with the KX modifier will be denied with Claim Adjustment Reason Code 119 - Benefit maximum for this time period or occurrence has been reached

There is also a therapy threshold related to the targeted medical review process, now known as the Medical Record (MR) threshold amount. This threshold remains at $3,000 for PT and SLP combined and a separate $3,000 for OT until CY 2028. Not all therapy services exceeding the $3,000 thresholds will be reviewed. CMS will analyze data to select claims exceeding this threshold for review.

Article Author: Beth Cobb, RN, BSN, ACM, CCDS
Beth Cobb, RN, BSN, ACM, CCDS, is the Manager of Clinical Analytics at Medical Management Plus, Inc. Beth has over twenty-five years of experience in healthcare including eleven years in Case Management at a large multi-facility health system. In her current position, Beth is a principle writer for MMP’s Wednesday@One weekly e-newsletter, an active member of our HIPAA Compliance Committee, MMP’s Education Department Program Director and co-developer of MMP’s proprietary Compliance Protection Assessment Tool.

This material was compiled to share information.  MMP, Inc. is not offering legal advice. Every reasonable effort has been taken to ensure the information is accurate and useful.