Undoubtedly, you’ve received questions from your patients and staff about what Medicare Part D is and how it works. This transition has many scratching their heads, so to help clarify it, we condensed the following basic information provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) for you to share with patients and coworkers: When did it take effect? Medicare Part D is part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which President Bush signed into law on December 8, 2003. The Medicare Part D benefit, which provides prescription drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries, took effect January 1, 2006. Open enrollment for this program began November 15, 2005, and continues through May 15, 2006.

Editor’s note: This article is the first in a two-part series. Practices most often lose revenue from coding mistakes, but that’s not the only way your practice may be dropping dollars. In part one of this series, healthcare consultant Jennifer Bever, MS, CHE, of Chicago-based KarenZupko & Associates, Inc., explains the five revenue leaks over which your practice has indirect control. Next month, we’ll discuss the five leaks that you directly control (e.g., charge capture).

Revenue cycle management remains high on every medical practice’s priority list. A critical point in the revenue cycle is ensuring that services rendered by the providers result in 100% of charges posted, accurately and in a timely fashion. Whether a practice relies on human data entry to post charges or an electronic medical record that passes charges into the billing system, it’s important to have strong controls in place to ensure that charges are not lost or delayed in posting and billing.

Aside from professional enlightenment and success, pursuing a seemingly outlandish path with your medical degree--such as becoming an astronaut--can provide extraordinary personal rewards. "[At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)], you work with bright, interesting people with varied backgrounds--and NASA has, as they say, the best toys in the world," says former astronaut F. Andrew Gaffney, MD,1 associate dean for clinical affairs and chief quality and patient safety officer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. "Being there is about what you’d imagine. It’s spectacular. If you get the chance, do it."