There are several factors that impact whether a service or procedure is covered under a member’s benefit plan. Medical policies and clinical utilization management (UM) guidelines are two resources that help us determine if a procedure is medically necessary. These guidelines are available to you as a reference when interpreting claim decisions.
Medical policies are used by all plans and lines of business unless Federal or State law—as well as contract language, including definitions and specific contract provisions or exclusions—take precedence over a medical policy. Those provisions will be considered first in determining eligibility for coverage before the medical policy is used to determine medical necessity.
In addition to the documents we develop and maintain for coverage decisions, we may adopt criteria developed and maintained by other organizations. Note that where we have developed a medical policy that addresses a service also described in one of these other sets of criteria, the plan’s medical policy supersedes.
MCG care guidelines are licensed and utilized to guide utilization management decisions for some health plans. This may include but is not limited to decisions involving prior authorization, inpatient review, level of care, discharge planning and retrospective review. MCG guidelines licensed include:
Our health plans may use guidelines developed by AIM Specialty Health (AIM) to perform utilization management services for some procedures and certain members.
AIM guidelines applicable to Plan programs are maintained by AIM Specialty Health. Updates to these guidelines can be found on their website.
By clicking on the link to AIM below, you are now leaving our site and linking to a site created and/or maintained by AIM ("External Site"). Upon linking you are subject to the terms of use, privacy, copyright and security policies of the External Site. We provide this link solely for your information and convenience. We encourage you to review the privacy practices of the External Site. The information contained on the External Site should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment provided by us.
IngenioRx, Inc. is an independent company providing pharmacy benefit management services on behalf of the plan. Clinical criteria for drugs and biologics paid under the medical benefit for certain Medicare/Medicaid markets can be found on the IngenioRx website.
The pharmacy clinical criteria for injectable, infused or implanted prescription drugs and therapies covered under the medical benefit are available for certain Medicare/Medicaid markets.
There are several different dates that may be associated with a medical policy or clinical utilization management guideline
Publish Date — the date a medical policy or clinical UM guideline was made available on our public websites
Last Review Date — the date a medical policy or clinical UM guideline was reviewed and approved
Note that while a publish date is enterprise-wide, the implementation date may differ depending on notification requirements. Please refer to the plan Provider Newsletter for more information relating to implementation dates.
If a medical policy or clinical UM guideline is not yet implemented for your Plan,
historical versions
may be accessed.
Please contact us with inquiries.
To see a list of all Medical Policies and Clinical UM Guidelines, visit our Full List page.
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