Your practice and patients stand to benefit now that 30 preventive services no longer require copays to be collected or deductibles to be met in 2011 and beyond. To get the most out of this change – part of the health reform law – spread the word about the free services, ensure patients are current on preventive screenings and plan for caveats when screenings turn up problems, experts say.

Your physician and non-physician providers (NPPs) are getting a reprieve from CMS’s new rule on signatures for clinical lab tests, which would have required a provider signature on every paper order for a test, starting Jan. 1, 2011. NOTE: This is an actual physician signature that can’t be substituted with a rubber stamp or signoff by another staff member, CMS says.

A handful of providers across the country have begun to receive bonus dollars under the federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program, although only those participating in the Medicaid version have been paid, CMS says. Incentive money from the Medicare version of the program will begin to flow in May, an agency official tells Part B News.

Any pediatricians and oral surgeons in your medical group or practice won’t be deactivated because they haven’t billed Medicare for prolonged periods of time, CMS says. CMS excluded these providers from new regulations that force providers out of the Medicare program when they don’t bill Medicare for 12 consecutive months.

You still won’t be reimbursed for providing routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests – no matter how many precautions and safeguards are taken – to your patients with pacemakers, CMS states in a Dec. 1 proposed decision memo. But CMS left the door open to expanding coverage in future years by allowing a clinical trial for such services

This chart lists 10 preventive services that saw the highest denial rates in 2009, based on CMS claims data. Assay tests for HIV were the most commonly denied by a hefty margin, and tests for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in general represent many of the top-denied services.