Rest a lot easier if your practice bills for the technical component (TC) of advanced diagnostic imaging services: CMS is backing down on a rule that would’ve created a massive Medicare enrollment burden for imaging groups. The result is that your CMS-855 forms won’t change as much, while whomever handles credentialing for your practice will have less work to do.

The Medicare Trust fund is set to go bankrupt in 2024, according to the latest annual Medicare Trustees Report, five years earlier than projected last year due to a sluggish economy, health care cost hikes and tax breaks. Realistically, if the spending is growing faster than the gross domestic product (GDP) then there is no way its affordable to the public or the country.

The Office of Inspector General warned you and your peers on May 18 about some features of electronic health records (EHRs) that could endanger your business and lead to False Claims Act violations.

You could get more use and money out of your electronic health records (EHR) system if you are enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid and qualify for incentive bonuses under both programs. If you are already planning to demonstrate meaningful use under the Medicare EHR incentive program, it’s worth checking to see whether you can also qualify for bonuses under your state’s Medicaid incentive program.

Do specialists, primary care providers or non-physician practitioners (NPPs) see drastically different denial rates and utilization for inpatient Medicare services? This chart addresses this question by analyzing both the utilization and denial rates of inpatient codes, based on the latest available CMS claims data from 2009.

My office implemented a certified electronic health records (EHR) system this month. We are now discussing e-prescribing and meaningful use requirements and the associated bonuses. I realize that we cannot earn a bonus for each program in the same year.  We think we should wait until next year to pursue the meaningful use bonus and concentrate this year on e-prescribing. If we take this approach, we want to make sure we won’t in any way compromise our ability to fully realize the meaningful use bonus by waiting until next year. Does this sound like a sound approach?

You have less than two months to make sure that each of your providers – including non-physicians with prescribing privileges – e-prescribes to at least 10 unique Medicare patients. Every provider who fails to meet this requirement will be penalized with a 1% pay cut in 2012.

Your specialty practice can earn a little extra cash by relying more heavily on its non-physician practitioners (NPPs) to interact with patients and bill primary care codes outside the practice walls with home and nursing home visits. The Primary Care Incentive Payment (PCIP) bonus that was intended to reward primary care providers, extends to NPPs regardless of specialty, Part B News learned (PBN 04/21/11).

These charts look at the most financially damaging codes billed by nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs), based on the latest available CMS claims data from 2009.