You may be awarded an extra $20 per Medicare beneficiary per month as part of the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCI), a program for which CMS recently began to accept preliminary applications. Primary care practices in Arkansas, Colorado, New Jersey and Oregon, as well as in parts of New York (Capital District-Hudson Valley region), Ohio and Kentucky (Cincinnati/Dayton region) and Oklahoma (Greater Tulsa region) are eligible.

Don’t let non-compliant patients prevent you from collecting copay-free revenue from annual wellness visits (AWVs), one of the few Medicare services with a lopsided profit margin. You can bill AWVs with minimal denial or audit risk by documenting uncooperative patient behavior and doing your part under the letter of the rule, experts say.

Make attesting for stage 1 meaningful use easier by factoring in some of the proposed meaningful use stage 2 requirements into your current workflow. Regardless of what stage of the electronic health records (EHR) process you are in, “you can’t really be focused on stage 1 without considering stage 2,” says Todd Searls, director of regional extension center (REC) operations for Wide River Technology Extension Center in Lincoln, Neb.

Your practice must be prepared for several changes starting July 1, many of which affect reimbursement. Here’s a rundown of important CMS programs and mandates that require your action:

These charts depict the five specialties that are most and least likely to accept new Medicaid and new Medicare patients. All data come from a survey of 2,232 physicians across all specialties conducted this April by Jackson Healthcare, a healthcare staffing company in Alpharetta, Ga.

Can providers bill for review of medical records after a patient visit? It usually takes 20 minutes.