Pick up the phone this week and call your vendor - there are three questions you need answers to as soon as possible if you're going to be ready for the transition to the 5010 HIPAA standard. That's the urgent message CMS's Chris Stahlecker, the director of the Division of Medicare Billing Procedures in CMS's Office of Information Services, delivered during a June 9 telephone conference.

The economy is getting better and the recession should end by the fourth quarter of 2009, according to about 93% of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). But many of your peers have yet to see the positive signs take place in their practices. At least that's what a dozen practice executives had to tell Part B News at the 2009 Medicare Enrollment Workshop from June 8 to June 10 in Denver.

Good news: There are only three situations a Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) can use an automated review to determine a claim was an overpayment - and demand you pay up. Even better, knowing what the three scenarios are, you can predict how likely it is that you'll be seeing RAC letters in your mailbox.

You're most likely doing work described by Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) measures at your practice right now, a practice administrator says. You might also already be using an electronic prescribing system. All you need to do now is figure out how to document and report to CMS work you're already doing to earn up to a 4% incentive bonus (PBN 7/28/08).

Some sort of reduction to your payments will be needed to pay for the cost of comprehensive health reform, according to the veteran lawmaker leading the reform effort.

"There are some provider expenses, reimbursements that ... according to [the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission or MedPAC], should be trimmed a little bit," said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "And we're going to get that done. And that's going to help quite a bit."

A group of technology companies hopes to educate half a million physicians this year about opportunities to digitize their practices presented by the economic stimulus legislation known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

HHS and the department's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) last month published roadmaps for implementing the massive health IT cash infusion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The plans lay out timetables for government actions but leave some key questions unanswered.

What do concepts like patient satisfaction and business process management have to do with electronic health records? Pretty much everything, according to some who have led the complex workflow redesign that often results when a practice transitions to EHR.

This week's question is answered by Sean Weiss CPC, vice president of DecisionHealth Professional Services.

Q. In order for a physician to bill observation services to Medicare, must the patient be located in an area the hospital designates as an "observation" area?

You're required to file a claim even when you don't accept assignment of the service, according to CMS. The agency recently spelled out its policy on your mandatory claims filing obligations and non-compliance is steep - there's a $2,000 fine for each violation of the requirement.