Providers have seven new CPT codes that describe similar services to Medicare’s post-discharge care management G-code in the proposed physician fee schedule.

The AMA’s recently released 2013 CPT data set introduced the E/M codes for “transitional care management services.”

Pay attention to a notice from your Medicare administrative contractor (MAC) about when your practice will be subject to a new manual medical review of claims for patients who have reached the $3,700 therapy threshold.

The MAC will tell you when your reviews will start – Oct. 1, Nov. 1 or Dec. 1, says Stephen Levine, PT, DPT, MSHA, partner, Fearon & Levine Consulting, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The changes are effective through Dec. 31.

Your practice can’t afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to recover from a breach of patients’ protected health information (PHI) stored or transmitted on mobile devices. Anything that can be easily lost or stolen should be encrypted, says Stanley Nachimson, a former CMS technology expert with a Reisterstown, Md.-based consulting firm. Breaches caused by stolen laptops, iPhones and tablets are becoming more common as practices incorporate mobile technology.

Don’t assume once you’ve successfully attested for meaningful use that your hard-earned incentive payment is yours to keep. After months of speculation that meaningful use audits were on the way, Figliozzi & Company, a CPA firm contracted by CMS, began sending out the first round of audits in July, according to Ober Kaler, a law firm representing practices subjected to the audits.

These charts depict the median annual salaries for seven non-provider job titles. The bottom chart breaks down the administrator salaries by small, medium and large practice sizes. All data comes from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) book, Management Compensation Survey: 2012 Report Based on 2011 Data, available at http://tinyurl.com/9cs3dcc. The average compensations listed below represent surveys of 7,907 managers at 1,306 medical practices.

How do you define “prescription drug management?” Specifically, how do coders translate the details of the portion of medical decision-making according to CMS’ 1995 & 1997 documentation guidelines?