Now that patients will receive a clear set of instructions about how to report fraud – including a phone number, examples of fraud and the prospects of a personal reward – here’s how expert health care attorneys recommend you respond:

This week’s chart is a compilation of the six specialties with the highest allowed Medicare charge per office visit along with the six specialties with the lowest per-visit charges. The data, a Part B News analysis of 2010 Medicare claims, exclude specialties with smaller total service counts.

Sending a formal complaint to the Office of E-Health Standards and Services (OESS), the CMS department that enforces HIPAA compliance, is your last recourse if you’re not getting paid by Medicare or your private payers. While it may not immediately get you paid, it certainly won’t hurt your chances, experts tell Part B News. 

Some practices seeing revenue slow because of HIPAA 5010 problems and high-deductible patients to start 2012 have found relief working with their banks to build or expand lines of credit or access business loans. One practice used $15,000 of its line of credit, which it doubled to $60,000 in anticipation of payment delays. “For once, my cynicism paid off,” he says.

The online discount craze perpetrated by websites such as Groupon and Living Social may help you attract new patients and fortify your bottom line, but your potential exposure to anti-kickback violations might not be worth the risk, experts say. The Oregon Board of Chiropractic Examiners tackled the online coupon issue during a meeting in July and created its own administrative rule to prohibit chiropractors from engaging in fee-splitting arrangements with sites such as Groupon.