Supporting Upgrades in Care Using Detailed Documentation Dispatched to…Arrived to Find You’re riding an ALS rig today, the BLS crew is tied up and you and your partner are dispatched by default for a call that has been determined via EMD to be a BLS Emergency for a patient with back pain. You respond accordingly […]
Repetitive Transport Documentation- Consistency is Important The Same Patient Repeat patients often suffer from chronic illnesses that persist during a period of their life span. Some patients never escape from their condition and others, thankfully improve to the point that they no longer require ambulance transportation. Because we interact with these patients, day in and […]
Documenting Causation for Illnesses V. Our “Documentation as a Habit” series moves on to Part V this week. In it, we’ll discuss causation or the synonym we use a lot in healthcare terminology, etiology. Last week we talked about mechanism of injury which is basically the trauma part of any causation discussion. This week, we […]
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 our EMS agency clients. The […]
Effectively Documenting Cold Weather Emergencies Here in PA This weekend is going to be the coldest weather we’ve experienced here in the area of our home office in Pennsylvania, so we’re taking a break from our ‘Billing for ALS 2’ series. We’ll pick back up with Part II in next week’s blog. Considering the extreme […]
Documenting Non-Emergency Scenarios Post October 1, 2015 Back Again We’re back again in the second part of our look at the guidance provided by Novitas Solutions as published in their future Local Coverage Determination (LCD) slated to begin on October 1, 2015. You’ll recall that we focused on emergency documentation in this space, last week. […]
The “Continuous Monitoring” Factor for Inter-facility, Non-emergency Ambulance Transports From the Open Door Forum One of the staples of being an ambulance biller is religiously following any information provided by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Ambulance billers can easily follow CMS by participating in the Ambulance Open Door Forum audio-conferences. The Open […]
Between the Lines Never a Time We’re going to begin this post with a blunt statement. There is never a time when your ambulance billing office can read between the lines! We talk A LOT about the documentation of ambulance transports in this space. Today we’re going to get about as fundament as we can […]
Billing for ALS Assessments Often misunderstood EMS billing is a science all of its own. One of the often misunderstood topics is when and how to properly bill for an ALS Assessment. Today’s blog serves to educate our clients and friends who read this space regarding when and how to bill for an ALS Assessment. […]
Documenting and Billing “Brain Attacks” CVA CVA- Cerebral Vascular Accident or what we most commonly refer to as a “stroke” can be one of the most challenging and life threatening emergencies that we handle in EMS. The scenario is literally a “brain attack.” When part of the brain is damaged or destroyed because it’s deprived […]
