Recovery audit contractors (RACs) will be free to target physician E/M services during the permanent program, despite earlier CMS statements that seemed to indicate otherwise, Part B News has learned.

The good news is you won't have to worry about getting medical records requests - the first step of a complex recovery audit contractor (RAC) review - until August at the very earliest, CMS says. The bad news: automated RAC reviews, which target simple "black and white" issues and don't require you to submit records, have already started in 23 states (see table below).

The proposed 2010 Physician Fee Schedule aims to expand the current Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) while simplifying the way CMS's e-prescribing program works (see story).

This chart shows the effectiveness of electronic medical records systems (EMRs) based on a recent, nationwide survey of 2,758 physicians published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It's essential for everyone in your office to work up to their license for a patient-centered medical home to work effectively. The roles and responsibilities in your practice need to be clearly defined so you have the right people, doing the right job.

Your primary care practice can boost revenue by making sure you bill common dermatology procedures done in your office correctly. Boosting your ability to provide and bill a wider array of services will also help prepare your practice to become part of a patient-centered medical home, experts say.

You probably already knew CMS was planning to propose a huge cut to your 2010 payments, but the agency also proposes to eliminate payment for consult codes, directing specialists to instead bill new and established patient E/M codes. In addition, the agency proposes to eliminate the cost of drugs from the physician payment formula, a concession long-sought by physician specialty groups.

The snowballing physician shortage that continues to plague the healthcare industry has most physician practices shining a lone spotlight on recruitment efforts. But what happens after you get the right candidate on board?

“There are some major shifts in the healthcare marketplace that are the drivers behind the need to become more, as we call it, retailish,” Gillen says. “Part of that shift is happening because healthcare costs are being gradually shifted away from being paid by insurers to being paid by consumers.”

When Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA), little did healthcare organizations suspect that they would be on the hook for yet another government mandate.