Bautista v. State

47 Ill. Ct. Cl. 161, 1994 Ill. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 56
CourtCourt of Claims of Illinois
DecidedOctober 12, 1994
DocketNos. 86-CC-3046, 86-CC-3058 through 86-CC-3072 inclusive, 86-CC-3365 through 86-CC-3368 inclusive, 86-CC-3497 through 86-CC-3499 inclusive, 86-CC-3351, 87-CC-0115, 87-CC-0117, 87-CC-0148, 87-CC-0149, 87-CC-0231 through 87-CC-0233 inclusive, 87-CC-0352 through 87-CC-0356 inclusive, 87-CC-0405, 87-CC-0406, 87-CC-0472 through 87-CC-0478 inclusive, 87- CC-0480, 87-CC-0481, 87-CC-0654 through 87-CC-0658 inclusive, 87-CC-0827, 87-CC-1102, 87-CC-1241, 87-CC-2016 through 87-CC-2022 inclusive, 87-CC-2569 through 87-CC-2572 inclusive, 87-CC-2574 through 87-CC-2580 inclusive, 87-CC-2582 through 87-CC-2589 inclusive, 87-CC-4145 through 87-CC-4148 inclusive, 87-CC-4150, 88-CC-0311
StatusPublished

This text of 47 Ill. Ct. Cl. 161 (Bautista v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Claims of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bautista v. State, 47 Ill. Ct. Cl. 161, 1994 Ill. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 56 (Ill. Super. Ct. 1994).

Opinion

OPINION

Mitchell, J.

Each of these 87 court actions presents an individual Claimant-physicians vendor-payment charges, pursuant to section 11 — 13 of the Public Aid Code (or PAC) (305 ILCS 5/1 — 1, et seq.), for medical services rendered to an Illinois Department of Public Aid (IDPA) recipient or a Spenddown enrollee (St. Anthony Hospital Medical Center v. State (1991), 44 Ill. Ct. Cl. 98) under the departments Medical Assistance Program (or MAP). The subject services are identified by five-digit Procedure Codes (PCs), relating to medical procedures as listed in the physicians’ Current Procedural Terminology, 4th Ed. (or CPT-4), and by the dates of service (or DOS), the dates on which Claimants rendered the various services. (See University of Illinois at Chicago v. State (1992), 44 Ill. Ct. Cl. 356; and Kim v. State (1991), 43 Ill. Ct. Cl. 286, 289-91.) In its consolidated report, IDPA advises that it had paid for the services identified in 13 of these patient accounts, to the extent that Claimants’ pleadings establish the Department’s receipt of their timely-submitted invoices for such services. These payments constitute payment-in-full for the related services. (Ryan v. State (1990), 43 Ill. Ct. Cl. 213.) Respondent denies vendor-payment liability (except as to two partial accounts identified infra), for the remaining 74 accounts. The Claimants having received notice of Respondent’s denial, the Court makes the following findings.

Consultant Services and Surgery Issues. A consultation is the service performed by a physician-specialist in a certain medical field, at the request of a patient’s attending physician with respect to the diagnosis and/or treatment of a particular illness, such that the requesting, or attending physician retains ongoing responsibility for the patients direct care. As defined by IDPA’s policy, a consultation comprises “the entire package of physician services required to arrive at a decision and/or recommendation regarding a patient’s condition and plan of treatment.” (MAP Handbook For Physicians, Topic A-240.) IDPA questions Claimant Friedells charge (no. 86-CC-3067), in the absence of a written report or other explanation of a change in the patient’s condition, for an “initial consult” (either PC-90620 or PC-90630), when Claimant had charged and been paid for the same service to the same patient performed two weeks earlier. Also questioned are charges by Claimants Daniels and David (nos. 86-CC-3499 & 86-CC-3071), absent explanatory documentation, for consults performed within one to two days of other consults for the same patients, for which other physician-specialists had charged and been paid. Applicable Handbook policy states that no payment will be made

“for multiple consultations by physicians of different specialties unless the need [medical necessity] for such is substantiated by the recipients physical condition or complications.” (Id., topic A-240.)

as explained and justified in documents accompanying the consultants’ invoices. In another instance (no. 87-CC-0354), Claimant David’s charge for a pathology consult performed during surgery (PC-88329) had been refused payment because Claimant had miscategorized, in his invoice, the type-of-service (T.O.S.) role in which he was performing when rendering that consult. When preparing their invoices, physicians are to identify (by proper code) a T.O.S. role which logically and consistently relates to each procedure (PC) charged in that invoice. IDPA had refused payment of Claimant Davids charge for another account (no. 87-CC-4148) because he had failed to identify, in his invoice, the physician who had requested his consult services. (Ryan v. State, supra at 214-15.) In each of these cases, Claimants’ pleadings fail to establish that their properly-prepared and documented invoices, identifying the referring-physician and listing a T.O.S. role consistent with each PC charged, had been received by IDPA prior to the one-year deadline for such receipt imposed by IDPA Rule 140.20 (89 Ill. Adm. Code, section 140.20) and by Medicaid regulation (42 C.F.R., section 447.45).

In no. 86-CC-3064 Claimant Clemons charged for hospital-visit care of a maternity patient. IDPA advises that it had paid another physician for the Cesarean-section delivery (PC-59501) of this patient’s child; and that said “combined service package” payment included all antepartum and postpartum care of the patient during her inpatient stay. Claimant was thus charging for a portion of the service package, even though the other physician had charged, and been paid for, all services comprising the C-section delivery package. (Compare Treister & Wilcox v. State (1989), 42 Ill. Ct. Cl. 185, 187-89; and IDPA Rule 140.413(a)(9) (89 Ill. Adm. Code section 140.413(a)(9).) In another claim (87-CC-2019), Claimant Vitualla charged for a surgical procedure considered by the Department as “performed for cosmetic purposes,” and thus excluded from MAP-coverage by IDPA Rule 140.6(k) (89 Ill. Adm. Code, section 140.6(k), reprinted in Handbook Topic 103). Claimant’s invoice was refused payment in a voucher-response notice which advised that “additional information [would be] required,” in any rebill-invoice of the charge (Handbook App. A-5, error code C02), to establish possible coverage of the procedure (Kim v. State, supra, at 290-91); and while Claimant alleges three rebillinvoices, he fails to establish that any of them was received by IDPA within the prescribed one-year period. St. Therese Medical Center v. State (1992), 45 Ill. Ct. Cl. 370; and Palos Community Hospital v. State (1983), 46 Ill. Ct. Cl. 458.

Access-Restrictions And Invalid Payee-Option Number. Nineteen accounts are identified as involving services to recipients who were subject to IDPAs RRP (Recipient Restriction Program) requirements, i.e., IDPA recipients who had

* ° received medical services in excess of need and with such frequency or in such a manner as to constitute an abuse of [their] medical care privileges ° 6 (PAC §11 — 26(a))

An RRP recipient’s access to nonemergency care is limited to those services which have been authorized in writing by the recipients primary care physician (PCP). See Kim v. State, supra at 292-93. As to the 19 accounts here challenged, Claimants fail to establish that their invoices, accompanied by the DPA 1662 authorizations of their patients’ PCPs, had been received by IDPA within the prescribed one-year period.

Claimant Murthy’s claims for payment of seven accounts for services rendered during 1985 are contested as a result of his failure properly to identify, in his invoices, the payee-option, number-coded address to which vendor-payments for specific services were to be mailed. In 1985 IDPA authorized each MAP-enrolled physician to designate up to four different mailing addresses to which subsequent payments for his or her MAP-services were to be mailed. This multiple address option was made available as a bookkeeping accommodation, in recognition that a physician might be affiliated with two or more group practices, or might maintain a practice in offices at two or more locations. By entering a prearranged payee number on each DPA-form invoice submitted, the physician could thereby inform the department as to which of several pre-designated addresses he or she wished its payment of that invoice to be mailed.

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Related

Rock Island Franciscan Hospital v. State
39 Ill. Ct. Cl. 100 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1987)
Simon v. State
40 Ill. Ct. Cl. 246 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1987)
Treister v. State
42 Ill. Ct. Cl. 185 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1989)
Gupta v. State
42 Ill. Ct. Cl. 269 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1990)
Ryan v. State
43 Ill. Ct. Cl. 213 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1990)
Kim v. State
43 Ill. Ct. Cl. 286 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1991)
Peterson v. State
43 Ill. Ct. Cl. 347 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1990)
Ramabrahmam v. State
43 Ill. Ct. Cl. 351 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1990)
St. Anthony Hospital Medical Center v. State
44 Ill. Ct. Cl. 98 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1991)
Brand, Beck & Hoover, Associates v. State
44 Ill. Ct. Cl. 284 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1992)
St. Therese Medical Center v. State
45 Ill. Ct. Cl. 370 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1992)
Rockford Urology Associates, Ltd. v. State
45 Ill. Ct. Cl. 376 (Court of Claims of Illinois, 1993)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
47 Ill. Ct. Cl. 161, 1994 Ill. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 56, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bautista-v-state-ilclaimsct-1994.