Like your work day, your office contains a finite amount of space and time-and for most physicians, it's never enough.

Before you start calling contractors and smashing down walls or coming up with schemes to add more hours in the day, there are a few things you can do to maximize every minute and square inch you have.

The best place to start collecting payments from delinquent patients isn't at a collection agency. "Start with your front desk," says Terri Weston, CMIS. She ought to know: For 12 years, Weston has headed the billing department for Total Medical Billing in Dallas.

Evaluation and management (E/M) coding has its own pitfalls that can affect your reimbursement. During a recent audioconference, Curtis J. Udell, CPAR, CPC, and Judy Breuker, CPC, CCS-P, CHCC, presented “E/M Guidelines: Documentation, coding, and compliance.” They discussed the 12 common E/M pitfalls, and solutions you can incorporate into your practice. Here are the first six. We’ll publish the rest in the May issue.1. Looking for “golden rules”Too many physicians look for rules they can apply to every patient encounter, says Udell. But each en counter is

Medicare contractor reform got a boost last December when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to competitively solicit bids for claims payment and administration contracts.Doctor's offices say they love the House bill, which would put local medical review policies (LMRPs) under an intense spotlight. Sandra Whitman, compliance officer for a mid-size medical clinic near Detroit, abhors local policies because "there's no information about frequency limitations."The Institute of Medi

Olympic spirit of a different sort charged through a multi-specialty clinic in upstate New York this winter. Mike Numeier, who oversees compliance for 21 physicians, leads strenuous training games in the basement of his home.Numeier came up with the funky idea when he found out the doctors had started a sports group after work. He channeled their energy, inventing an exercise game to improve documentation and coding skills. The program has helped Numeier build awareness and support for compliance.Why come? Dessert and coffee follow the after-work team-building games, but it's the

How to manage relationships with drug company detail repsTom Taylor is a former military officer in the JAG core. He knows a bout rules and how to enforce them. But even Taylor admits that enforcing gift policies is no easy job. So he’s asking the government for help.Taylor, now legal counsel for Gundersen Medical Clinic in La Crosse, WI, last year challenged federal officials to issue new antikickback regulations.“[You need to] make it absolutely clear that the federal government will no longer tolerate pharmaceutical companies’ thinly veiled marketing activities, wh

Creative ideas to the rescue when patients don’t show upBy Barbara Eberly“You know how it is when you go to be the subject of a psychology experiment, and nobody else shows up, and you think, maybe that’s part of the experiment? I’m like that all the time.”—Steven Wright, comedianPatient no-shows are an experiment in efficiency. And too often, we fail. What’s more, there may be clinical consequences for patients who skip appointments. Here’s a recipe to resist getting sucked into no-show inefficiency. This recipe, if given a little of yo