Origins and Destinations Where am I? We were reminded when adding some new facility locations into our ambulance billing office computer system this week how confusing the types of facilities can become. Today, a single pick-up and/or drop-off location for an ambulance can serve several capacities. Literally one address, one...
L.A.T.T.D. = Billing Success Often asked… Our billing office is often asked the question by EMS agency administrators; “What do we need to do to collect the most dollars?” Simple question, not-so-easy answer. However, you can put forth a plan that we refer to as L.A.T.T.D. and you’ll find that...
Patients are Changing—What’s the Effect? In all 50 States… We stumbled across these startling statistics this week. In all 50 States of this United States of America the following numbers apply: 50%- All 50 States now have an obesity rate higher than one-half of the population 48%- Percentage of persons...
Insurance Coverage Doesn’t Mean Insurance Payment This year, for the first time in 8 years, we’ll elect a new President in the United States of America. Healthcare issues have been on the radar screen for many years. President Obama brought us the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare”. Much has been...
When Other Healthcare Disciplines Don’t Know Ambulance “I worked in healthcare.” One recent caller to our billing office started a conversation in this way when he called to question his ambulance bill. The patient called because he had received notice that we had billed Medicare on behalf of one of...
ICD-10 Ushers in “New” Concepts Good Day of Training! Last week, in this space, we talked about the importance of training for the billing office. We made the point that the billing office is vital to the success and “health” of your EMS agency and as such training is vital...
Why the Billing Office Must Train It’s that time of year Next week, our billing office family here at Enhanced Management Services will pause to train. Every single Enhanced staff member is trained as a Certified Ambulance Coder (CAC) using the curriculum supplied by the National Academy of Ambulance Coding...
Reimbursement Reality Check The Good Old Days! Remember back about ten years ago when we got those really nice Medicare increases each year? We remember! One year 5%, another year 3; it sure was nice and it helped us keep up with the rising costs of everything that makes our...
Why is EMS Documentation Hard to Do? We hear it Working in an EMS billing office, we hear it over and over. “I hate writing patient care reports.” Add the… “It’s too hard.” “It’s boring.” “It puts me to sleep.” “I never know what to write and how to write...
Details! It’s not rocket science… Just a few weeks ago we were having a conversation with one of our EMS billing clients and while discussing this manager’s frustration about the quality of his staff’s documentation in their patient care reports he simply blurted out… “It’s not rocket science, for Pete’s...
