Hundreds of hospitals across America are involved in CMS’ Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Initiative. There may be some business in it for your practice  – if you have the right skills.

Start prepping your practice now to keep its own records of payments and gifts from non-payers, including drug and medical equipment manufacturers, as those entities gear up to report those same payments to HHS in the coming months.

Your work is not done if you completed your first electronic health records (EHR) attestation to secure $18,000 for each eligible provider at your practice. Another $26,000 awaits each provider if your practice takes key steps to make progress on meaningful use measures.

If you’re thinking about making the big and increasingly common move from an independent practice to one integrated with a hospital or health system, or even getting out of the business, our experts advise that you do some work and some hard thinking before you start taking offers.

The last deadline passed Feb. 28 for practices to secure the full $44,000 electronic health record (EHR) incentive over five years, but practices can capture $39,000 if they start attesting in 2013.

Be ready to change your prescribing habits for common pain medications such as Vicodin if the FDA’s recommendation to reclassify medications with hydrocodone as Schedule II controlled drugs becomes a rule.

This graph shows how providers billed modifier 22 (Unusual procedural service requiring extra physician work) from 2010 to 2011, and selected denial rates.