An electronic health record (EHR) subsidy from a health plan or other entity may work for your practice to help defray the cost of the systems. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC), for example, has announced a $23 million initiative to provide EHRs to 750 of its participating physicians (PBN 4/2/12).

This chart shows the percentage of copays collected at the time of service for better-performing practices, based on the Medical Group Management Association’s (MGMA’s) Performance and Practices of Successful Medical Groups: 2011 Report.

Is 20670 (removal of implant; superficial, separate procedure) billable to Medicare – and payable – in the postoperative period? Some resources indicate that it is only appropriate for coding purposes but do not confirm whether it is billable and payable.

This month's tool is a comprehensive list of the average sales price (ASP) drug prices for the second quarter. You will be able to view an Excel file of the  the changes with the first quarter changes alongside for comparison.  A PDF version of the data is also available for download here.

Proposed rules for stage 2 meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR) mean added HIPAA obligations and risks to incentive payments if your practice doesn’t comply. The stage 2 proposed rules do not “override” or “change” the HIPAA privacy and security rules, CMS states.

You will get paid less for your most frequently billed drug codes thanks to price slashes in CMS’ latest average sales price (ASP) list effective April 1. Of the 60% of top-billed codes that saw price changes, nearly a quarter were decreases, a Part B News analysis of 2010 CMS claims data and ASP data shows.

Don’t leave money on the table by opting not to schedule annual wellness visits (AWVs) or performing them inefficiently. CMS clarifications on the 2011-initiated preventive service offer a prime opportunity to sharpen your process. For example, the regulations allow for you to perform AWVs once the patient is already at your office – as many of your peers have elected to do.

Verify private pay patients’ benefits before you provide preventive services to avoid losing money because of the lack of coverage in grandfathered plans. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare and most private insurance plans now must cover a growing number of preventive services, often without a copay. But there’s a hidden risk when rendering those services. 

Practices that followed WPS carrier instructions to document extended history of present illness (HPI) with three or more chronic conditions when using the 95 E/M guidelines must retrain staff to follow the “four or more elements” requirement to avoid lost payments. If physicians choose to use the 97 guidelines, they can document the status of three chronic conditions but must record whether those conditions are improving, stable or declining.

Practices will have more time to prepare for Medicare’s new place-of-service (POS) policy. Days before the policy’s original April 1 effective date, CMS announced it would put off implementation until Oct. 1 this year to “allow CMS to address questions received and to make any necessary changes,” according to a March 29 CMS transmittal.