Part B News | Part B News

Proposed self-referral changes mostly make life easier for providers

07/20/2015

CMS gives a break to physician groups hiring NPPs and to those advertising physician-owned hospitals, but it widens responsibility for group owners according to the physician self-referral changes in the proposed Medicare physician fee schedule.

Get paid for more of providers’ ‘cognitive work’ with new E/M codes – in 2017

07/20/2015

by: Richard Scott

You can expect new a reimbursement stream when you provide coordinated care to your patients – such as medication reconciliation or caregiver education – as Medicare plans to roll out additional E/M codes to reflect routine work you may be doing but are not reimbursed for.

Online only: CMS proposes new telehealth codes, ACO measure and more

07/20/2015

by: Part B News staff

Additional coverage of the 2016 proposed physician fee schedule includes anesthesia coding for screening colonoscopy, new telehealth codes and more.

Compare current versus proposed 2016 payments for commonly billed codes

07/20/2015

by: Karen Long

The following chart shows payments for commonly billed codes for three time periods: Jan. 1 through June 30, 2015; July 1 through Dec. 31, 2015, when the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) increased the conversion factor by 0.5%; and...

Changes to incident-to rules CMS proposes could mean adjustments for practices

07/13/2015

by: DecisionHealth Staff

Practices that rely on non-physician practitioners (NPPs) and auxiliary medical staff to stretch their revenue may have to adapt to new processes if CMS goes through with proposed incident-to changes. The agency intends to tie billing to the supervising provider for incident-to services.

CMS tells doctors: Close enough is good enough for one year in ICD-10

07/13/2015

by: Roy Edroso

The dream of a “grace period” for ICD-10 users came partially true with a surprise joint announcement from CMS and the AMA promising that Medicare contractors “will not deny” claims that lack certain specificity in ICD-10 for one year after Oct. 1.

Rural, small practices gain opportunity in Medicare’s ACO Investment Model

07/13/2015

by: Richard Scott

Because of late-breaking changes to Medicare’s newest accountable care venture, more practices are now eligible to reap a sizeable chunk of change to invest — or continue to invest — in the infrastructure necessary to operate a successful accountable care organization (ACO).

OIG looking at whether shared savings groups exchange data to coordinate care

07/13/2015

by: Scott Kraft

One of the most important elements of effective care coordination in a shared-savings program is that participants share information about the patient’s condition to prevent duplicative tests and unnecessary visits and hospitalizations.

Watch out on double-booking CCM as CMS guides hospitals in proposed OPPS rule

07/13/2015

by: Roy Edroso

New guidance from CMS may encourage some hospitals to claim chronic care management (CCM) on practice patients, including yours; make sure your patient isn’t over-served.

Understand the difference between CCI edit, medically unlikely edit

07/13/2015

by: Laura Evans

Question: What is the difference between a CCI edit and a medically unlikely edit (MUE)?

Login

User Name:
Password:
Remember me Forgot password
Welcome to the new Part B News Online. If you are a returning user having trouble logging in, please click here.