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CMS’ vaccine rules lay out staff deadlines, how to handle hold-outs

02/07/2022

Heed fresh guidance that CMS issued on its vaccine mandate, which the Supreme Court cleared in January. The new regulations clarify the rules for facilities and the providers, including those primarily toiling in practices, who work at them.

Discover 3 benefits in new critical care rules; provider training is a must

02/07/2022

by: Julia Kyles, CPC

The new split/shared option for critical care services is a major change to Medicare’s policy (PBN 11/15/21). But the ability to combine physician and non-physician practitioner (NPP) work is just one of the high-impact changes — with the potential to confer benefits on your practice — covered in CMS 100-04, Change Request 11181, which the agency published Jan. 14.

Take care when you share clinical notes with patients, implement 5 tips

02/07/2022

by: Marla Durben Hirsch

Under recent rule changes, your practice’s physicians, qualified health care professionals and clinical staff should be prepared to share clinical notes with patients. The interoperability rule banning information blocking that took effect in 2021 may mean that more patients will be asking for their electronic health information (EHI).

Prescribing ivermectin for COVID isn’t illegal but could raise compliance flags

02/07/2022

by: Roy Edroso

Question: We have a doctor who is prescribing ivermectin to his COVID patients. He isn’t taking insurance reimbursement and characterizes this as an off-label use of the drug. Is he going to get in trouble?

Know the rules for CPT coding for cognitive assessment services

02/07/2022

by: Sarah Gould

Question: I have seen a lot of updates from Medicare about CPT code 99483 (Assessment of and care planning for a patient with cognitive impairment). We have never billed the service before. What are the reporting requirements for cognitive assessment and care planning services?

Critical care payments, bucking E/M trends, jumped 11% in 2020

02/07/2022

by: Richard Scott

The toll of the COVID pandemic caused reduced services across many types of patient encounters in 2020, but critical care services didn’t suffer. They expanded. Perhaps due to the health impact of the COVID scourge, practices increased revenue for critical care encounters (99291-99292) by more than 10% in 2020 compared to the year before.

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