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 your ambulance billing program and […]
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 written about the effects of […]
Of “Ambulance Drivers” and “Emergencies” All of the times… Can you count all of the times that you have been labeled an “ambulance driver”? Nearly half a decade removed from the dawn of modern EMS, to our neighbors that’s what we are…ambulance drivers. Regardless of all of the hours you’ve spent training to attain your […]
Dissecting “The Misunderstoods”- Part I- Billing for ALS 2 “The Misunderstoods” There are two level of service categories that we lump into a bucket called “The Misunderstoods” of ambulance billing. Those billing levels are the Advanced Life Support, Level 2 (ALS 2) and the Specialty Care Transport (SCT). There remains a cloud of uncertainty in […]
Be Careful What You Say! The Quick Answer The quick answer will get you every time! You know, the patient asks you a question you quickly answer with an off-the-cuff answer. And then…..you realize…. “Oops…maybe I shouldn’t have said that.” Too late now! Where are we going with this? Invariably, questions fielded about billing in […]
It’s Finally Here! It seems like forever ago… It seems like forever ago we began talking about this thing called ICD-10. Delay after delay, extension after extension and here we are. Thursday is the day the American healthcare industry has long been anticipating. ICD-10 is finally here! Boil it all down Boil it all down, […]
ICD-10 Behind the Scenes The stuff you don’t see… In previous blog posts we talked a lot about the new ICD-10 diagnosis code conversation set to take place on October 1st, primarily focusing on the things we see- namely documentation and the interpretation of the Patient Care Report documentation in the billing office that turns […]
Sharpening Documentation Skills Using Hands-On Training How will they learn? The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the early church in Rome to encourage the early first-century believers to actively share their faith with others. He used a series of questions to make his point. “But how can they call on him to save them […]
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 […]
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 […]
