Hello Dedwards,
Medicare Part A billing is a little unique but holds the same principle as the hcfa 1500 billing but in a different formaility. The values codes are codes detailing to Medicare how many days you are billing seeking full payment, copay days, and even noncovered days (if appliable).
Occurrance Span is a detailed matter as well and needs to be understood in order to get the claim paid. It details the length of stay which qualifies the claim for part A payment and additional dates of additional services/procedures the patient may have incurred in additional to the inpatient stay which may be a payable service/procedure separately by medicare.
All the fields you named have significant meaning/purpose and you need to clearly understand the meanings in order to optimalize billing.
Initially for me when I was introduced to facility Part A billing, it threw me for a loop as well. Its okay to be confused and frustrated. That means you care, you want to learn, and have the desire to win the battle. Just continue to seek out reliable guidance from Medicare and the available resources they offer for free. With some trial and error, the lightbulb finally went off for me and it will for you. You can do it!
Recommendation:
Please check with your carrier to see when the next webinar and/or local training session for facility billing which may includes how to complete the UB-04 for clean submission. Perhaps you can ask questions if they don't touch on it (I always did). Without completion of the information/fields required and necessary for payment, your claim will never leave the clearinghouse or pass your claim scrubber for processing.
I hope this helps and good luck,
Denise35