A recent AMA study found that in 2018, for the first time, employed doctors outnumbered those that owned, or had an ownership stake in, a practice. For independent practices, this…
Poor healthcare IT infrastructure has contributed to patient care problems at Indian Health Service (IHS) hospitals, concluded a recent report by the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG). The report…
HIV/AIDS payments, in particular, are under the microscope. The new Patient-Driven Payment Model, or PDPM, makes radical changes to the Medicare payment model for nursing homes. One of the largest…
Care coordination and planning are becoming increasingly important to caring for the millions of Medicare beneficiaries suffering from two or more serious health conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.…
When your job is converting medical documentation into codes, your knowledge of medical anatomy has to be shipshape. But you’ve got the added complication that the code set you’re using…
In countries like the US, citizens are investing in health insurance plans, which are directly increasing the demand for medical coders’. Recently got an opportunity to interact with a few…
Prior authorizations consume hours of physician time as they seek insurer approval for drugs and treatments. Health plans say prior auths improve the quality of care and manage healthcare spending,…
CMS has provided ICD-10 Procedure Coding System updates for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2019, and ending Sept. 30, 2020. Four takeaways: 1. The updated ICD-10-PCS codes are for…
The case continues even after two suicides. When does an audit go beyond the reasonable and become persecution? An act of tyranny by claim denial and extrapolation? Vernon Partners LLC…
There are 2,115 additions to the third quarter Medicare National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI or CCI) practitioner edits that became effective July 1, 2019. The good news is that the…
The stories of Americans affected by surprise medical bills are hard to believe. A teacher with insurance was taken to an out-of-network medical facility when he suffered a heart attack…
On July 29, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that includes proposals to update payment policies, payment rates, and quality provisions for services…
As the industry grapples with solutions for high patient financial responsibility and healthcare costs, it has become laser-focused on one key, unifying issue: surprise medical billing. A surprise medical bill…
Where the burden lies could make a difference when it comes to the RACs. In a legal lawsuit, one party is initially presumed to be correct and gets the benefit…
Tina R. Strawn, RN, administrative director of operations for patient financial services at Houston-based Harris Health System, has 27 years of healthcare experience. Throughout her career, she has worked in…
It’s every physician’s worst nightmare: Receive payment for services rendered, but then a payer identifies an aberrant pattern in claims data, audits the records, decides it has overpaid the practice,…