CMS Releases Further Clarification and Guidance about Prior Authorizations Here to Stay The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Prior Authorization Demonstration Project is here to stay. Put in place by CMS as a pilot project in the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Carolina in December, 2014; the program requires that all […]
On Drop Downs and Written Narratives- Connecting the Data in our PCRs “Paint a Picture” We read a lot of communication that point to expectations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), State agencies and even Commercial Insurance payers bombard our billing office with all kind of communication about what they expect to be […]
H.R. 2 and You Last Week Last week Congress passed the “Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.” The Bill, H.R. 2, contained an important provision for the ambulance industry and it passed on the brink of allowing the Medicare ground ambulance bonus payments to expire. The extension effected by H.R. 2 allows them to […]
The Importance of Building and Maintaining Relationships Beyond EMS – Part 2 Last week… This is the second part of a two-part series about building relationships within the healthcare community but outside of your EMS circles. Last week we explored why this is necessary and who we should be building those relationships with. In this […]
The Importance of Building and Maintaining Relationships Beyond EMS More and More… More and more we in EMS are being called upon to interact and develop relationships that go beyond our brothers and sisters in the Fire/EMS arena. It doesn’t matter what level of the organizational chart you serve, we all have a duty to […]
What the “Permanent Doc Fix” Means for EMS Yesterday Yesterday, March 26, 2015, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of H.R. 2 to do away with Medicare’s sustainable growth-rate formula and to pass what is commonly known as the permanent doc fix. Uncertainty Remains While the House passed the measure overwhelmingly, there’s still […]
What do I need to do? The Big Question As we talk with people in the industry, administrators and street providers alike, we field this question the most. “What do I need to write/not write in my Patient Care Report?” The companion discussion always centers on… “Can you provide me a “list” of things we […]
Shorter Timelines = Greater Dollar$ The time between… Rising costs and stale reimbursement is causing everyone in the EMS industry to take a long hard look at the bottom line. Today we’ll be focusing on three key parts of the billing timeline. Do you know what the time is that lapses between the incident and […]
The Changing Regulatory EMS Billing Landscape The Landscape Has Changed If you read this space on a regular basis, you know that we frequently discuss the changing regulatory landscape. With Medicare and Medicaid comprising well more than half of all the dollars that flow into many EMS agencies, it’s important that we all understand the […]
Becoming EMS Strong 52 Weeks a Year This year, National Emergency Medical Services week will take on a whole new meaning with focus not only on “the week” but also extending to a year-round campaign that organizers have dubbed with the title “EMS Strong”. Think of it as a campaign to draw attention to America’s […]
