You would see a 0.5% boost to your Medicare payments in 2010 - but no permanent fix to the payment formula that continually acts to cut your payments - under the first official draft of the Senate Finance Committee's health reform bill. A permanent SGR fix is "a separate side issue," that will be addressed this year, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said in a televised press conference with reporters Sept. 16.

Save money and improve patient payment behavior by sticking to a clear, tough-but-fair collections policy, experts say.  The key: Work with patients who tell you they have problems paying, but don't be afraid to send unresponsive patients to collections, even with the economy still sputtering.

Your Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) can't disregard the coverage conditions in your local coverage determinations (LCDs) to demand overpayments on any claim in a complex review, CMS officials say. If a RAC believes you should've been paid for a service despite a relevant LCD saying otherwise, it has the power to override the LCD and approve the claim,

When our surgeons are asked to consult on a new patient in the hospital setting, is it mandatory that we get the patient's signature authorizing Medicare to pay our claim?

Only one piece of the health reform puzzle remains, and it's in the Senate Finance Committee, which recently leaked a "draft framework" for health reform obtained by Part B News (see story, here).

Here's a rundown on all the major provisions in this draft that affect you and your peers:

Consult codes should be revised instead of eliminated, several medical societies said in comments on the proposed 2010 Physician Fee Schedule (PBN 8/24/09). The American College of Cardiology (ACC), for example weighed in that it "vehemently disagrees with the CMS proposal to eliminate payment for consultations and urges CMS to withdraw this portion of the proposed rule."

Call your carrier to verify a patient's coverage after an accident or other personal injury and mention to the carrier you might be looking for future conditional payments to help ensure you'll be paid during these sometimes tricky situations.

This chart shows how denial rates have changed by place of service from 2006 to 2007. The denial rate was calculated based on 12 imaging codes, which were chosen because they had high utilization across each service setting.

Get a faster response to claims from private payers by reminding them on every claim that you'll hold them to your state's prompt payment laws. That was just one popular tip shared at the first annual Physician Office Managers Association of America (POMAA) conference, held in Baltimore from Sept. 8 to Sept. 12.

Don't be caught off guard: IRS garnishments and adjustments to physician compensation are now more likely and that puts cash flow at risk, experts say. Starting in October, the IRS can garnish a physician's Medicare reimbursements for non-tax related reasons - because of child support, alimony or other outstanding business transactions - under the government's Federal Payment Levy Program. Physicians are already subject to a federal tax levy under the program.