HURRICANE SANDY BEGS THE QUESTION – HOW IS YOUR DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN WORKING?
Disaster recovery is very high on everyone’s mind after Hurricane/Super-storm Sandy made a landing. Many have found out that their back-ups were compromised; they lost data due to power outages and in horrible situations, due to flooding lost much of their paper based information. NCEB scans our clients’ patient demographics, charge forms, payment documents, patient statement stubs, etc and stores …
Read MoreHOUSE LEADERS REQUEST IMMEDIATE SUSPENSION OF MU DOLLARS
We came across the linked article below. Looks like a few House of Representative Leaders have sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting the immediate suspension of MU Incentive payments. The House Leaders are citing that EHRs lack a clear interoperability plan and the hurdles for Meaningful Use are set too low. At the end …
Read MoreCHANGES IN OHIO MEDICAID HMOs
Effective January 1, 2013, there are changes in the companies that provide Medicaid HMO coverage for your patients. If you are in northeastern Ohio, there are two new companies that you NEED to have a provider number and credentialing completed by January 1. Molina and Paramount are joining Wellcare, Caresource and Buckeye as the Medicaid HMOs for this are. As …
Read MoreMedicare Meaningful Use Incentive Decreasing
If you are not using a qualified EMR/EHR by October 3, 2012, you will be losing the chance at the full $44,000. There is a $5,000 decrease in incentive payments for a start after October 3, 2012 and before October 3, 2013. You lose a full $20,000 of total possible incentive payments if you don’t start by October 3, 2014. …
Read MoreCMS Proposed New Rule on E-Prescribing Penalty
A new rule proposed by CMS will give two big breaks to EHR providers: 1. Providers that failed to submit the 10 e-prescription transactions by 6/30/2012 will be able to avoid the Medicare payment penalty in 2013 if they achieve Meaningful Use of a certified EHR by the end of this year. 2. Providers that show intent to participate …
Read MoreDON’T LOSE 1.5% TO 2% OF YOUR MEDICARE DOLLARS
We have been talking with QNet Support, the organization that is helping CMS to determine if eRx requirements have been met and to answer all question based on the PQRS for eRx. We have found that many doctors made a huge tactical mistake in 2011. Instead of submitting the G8553 HCPCs code with the qualifying CPT E&M code (office visit) …
Read MoreThe Fourth Deadly Sin for Medical Practices
It has been awhile since I started listing what we consider to be the Seven Deadly Sins for Medical Practices. Today we’re going to address the Fourth Sin. This one will kill a practice… not collecting copays before the patient leaves. We have seen many practices that don’t verify that the patient has a copay, how much it may be, …
Read MoreWHEN YOUR MEDICAL BILLING VENDOR CHANGES OWNERSHIP
On June 19th, our blog about “Five Ways that a Medical Billing Vendor’s Change in Business Status Can Affect You” will be posted at the online e-zine of Physician’s Practice. In our industry, it appears that more and more billing companies are merging and you should know what to look for to keep your practice in the “pink”. That link is www.physicianspractice.com …
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Is Your Income Dwindling?
With statistics such as 80% of medical practices are stolen from by their employees, have you checked to see if your income has started decreasing? Not necessarily will the decrease be by a huge amount, but any amount is dangerous. Employees, just like physicians, can be disgruntled, unhappy, having issues at home. All of these attributes, and more, can make …
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The Third Deadly Sin for Medical Practices
I would like to discuss what I believe is the third deadly sin for medical practices. That sin is lack of front desk staff training. This actually encompasses two areas. The first area of importance, and I believe the most important, is teaching the front desk staff how to act. Be polite, smile, don’t be distracted when dealing with patients… …
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