Expect to see incentive money for the 2010 Medicare Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program to start arriving. CMS has begun doling out the bonus cash for qualifying providers and plans to finish handing it out by Aug. 31. Also, remember that as of January 2010, CMS began using the new LE indicator on your electronic remittance advices to indicate that a given payment was an incentive payment, not just reimbursement for services. To get even more specific, CMS created 4-digit codes to distinguish the source of incentive (e.g., e-Rx versus electronic health record or EHR bonus).

CMS released new data Aug. 10 on first-year provider participation for the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and E-prescribing (e-Rx) program initiatives.

The report revealed that despite having better participation, PQRS participants fared worse on average bonus collection than successful e-prescribers by over $1,000 per provider. Each e-Rx participant took home around $3,000 in comparison to PQRS providers who only nabbed $1,956, according to CMS’s report.

You can look forward to overpayment demand letters -- based on audits by your recovery audit contractor (RAC) -- coming from your Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) or carrier, starting Jan. 1, 2012. Your MAC or carrier will now issue the demand letters, but everything else about the recoupment process will stay the same, including the 40-day discussion period and the appeals process.

When it comes to being prepared for ICD-10, it’s not lack of provider awareness that’s the problem; it’s the lack of knowledge and lack of a plan, according to a new physician survey released Aug. 2.

The non-scientific survey, which was conducted and published by The Frank Cohen Group, LLC, revealed that nearly 90% of the 241 respondents acknowledged that their Medicare payments are at risk of not being processed if their practice hasn’t implemented HIPAA 5010 by Jan. 1, 2012.

And with 2012 only months away, shockingly less than 40% have prepared a plan for testing or implementing ICD-10 to be ready by the drop-dead deadline of October 2013 and even fewer have begun some type of implementation process.

So far, the government hasn't taken any audit action against providers who have attested to meaningful use and collected their first round of electronic health record (EHR) incentive dollars. But this could be changing, starting with Medicaid incentive payments (worth $21,250 in the first round of the program), according to a new OIG report.