Part B News
New York mulls physician 'dress code council' bill
08/01/2011

Physicians, nurses, and midwives might have to toss their neckties, jewelry, and lab coats thanks to an infection prevention effort making its way through the New York state legislature.

Ask a Part B News Expert: AWV diagnostic codes
08/01/2011

What are the diagnosis codes that should be used to bill the Annual Wellness Visit (AWV)?

Dartmouth links primary care quality to actions, not number of physicians
08/01/2011

It's long been assumed that the more primary care physicians (PCP) serve a geographic population, the fewer avoidable hospitalizations and the lower rate of death for Medicare patients. But a Dartmouth report published this past May 2011 in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that mortality and hospitalizations are significantly lower in areas where there are more PCPs who work full time taking care of patients in ambulatory care office or clinic settings.

Tool of the Month: Pre-authorization and Patient Coverage Verification Form
07/25/2011
by: Lauren C. Williams
Download this month’s tool – a Pre-authorization and Patient Coverage Verification Form– to help you prevent claims denials  for pre-certified services by collecting as much of the patient's carrier information upfront and avoiding complications down the line.
 
The form is available exclusively to Part B News subscribers for free. Subscribers have permission to download the form and use it at their practice or office. Download this file by clicking the “Download File” link found at the top of this article at www.partbnews.com.
 
5 proven tips to bill wellness visits without slowing your doctors down
07/25/2011
by: Grant Huang
Your peers find it hard to make annual wellness visits (AWVs) worth the extra physician time and effort, but some practices have found ways to make AWVs a significant money-maker by streamlining appointments, educating patients and leaning heavily on ancillary staff, such as non-physician practitioners (NPPs) and medical assistants (MAs).
5 steps to protect patient data, meet meaningful use security requirement
07/25/2011
by: Grant Huang

You must always protect patient data under HIPAA, but you must go a step further to meet meaningful use and collect your first electronic health record (EHR) incentive payment of $18,000. While you are already required to follow security standards for electronic health information, the final mandatory or “core” meaningful use measure 15 asks for much more. Here are five ways to meet it.

E/M codes win, imaging loses under continuing transition to new dataset
07/25/2011
by: Lauren C. Williams
You would enjoy slow but steady payment increases to E/M services under the proposed 2012 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) while imaging services take a pay hit. This is a gradual trend that can be directly linked to CMS’s transition from a dataset long used to calculate relative value units (RVUs) to a new one, experts tell Part B News.
CMS has new way to target claims
07/25/2011
by: Lauren C. Williams
Fraudulent claims will no longer be paid first and investigated later come July 1 when CMS launches its new predictive modeling initiative. CMS’s new tactic against fraud, a product of health reform, will be similar to technology used by credit card companies. Claims will be analyzed using risk scoring technology that will identify suspicious Medicare claims before they are paid.
How to fend off payer repayment demands and inappropriate offsets
07/25/2011
by: Marla Durben Hirsch

Private payers are becoming more aggressive in their demands that your practice return money in cases of mistaken overpayment. Even worse, payers just won a major victory backing their right to unilaterally seize these overpayments by offsetting them from money they owe you but haven’t yet paid.

Benchmark of the Week: E/M usage by specialty and visit type, 2009
07/25/2011
by: Grant Huang

Are you billing more higher-level E/Ms than the average for your specialty? What about lower-level E/Ms or new patient vs. established E/Ms? These charts give you a baseline to compare against in the form of four top E/M-billing specialties: dermatology, family practice, orthopedic surgery and podiatry.

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