Government Stop-Gap Measure Extends Add-On Payments 3203 In the eleventh hour, just prior to a looming federal government shutdown, Congress was able to pass the American Relief Act of 2025. The Act provided funding to keep the federal government afloat through the end of this year and extending through the first quarter of the […]
Breaking News! CMS Releases First GADCS Report By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CADS* Year 1/Year 2 Cohort Analysis The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in cooperation with the RAND Health Care Corporation has issued the long-awaited first report detailing the results of the Year 1 and Year 2 Cohort Analysis of the […]
CMS Brings Early Christmas Gift in Addition of PHBT to ALS2 Level Transports By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CADS* Final Rule Published The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Final Rule for the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule on November 1, 2024, bringing an early Christmas gift to the ambulance industry. The […]
Cooling Inflation Equals a Smaller AIF for 2025 By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CADS* The Results Are In! The results are in! No, not the 2024 presidential election results, yet… we mean the results of the annual Ambulance Inflation Factor (AIF) calculation for 2025 have been announced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services […]
CMS Releases First GADCS Reports- Part II, Medicare FFS Claims Analysis By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CADS* Ground Ambulance Industry Trends In this Part II blog post, we’ll look at the second of two reports recently released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) using the newly acquired data from the Ground […]
CMS Releases First GADCS Reports- Part I, Entry and Exit Trends By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CADS* Ground Ambulance Industry Trends Two reports were released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) using the newly acquired data from the Ground Ambulance Data Collection System (GADCS) project. One report is subtitled An Analysis […]
Paving the Path to Medicare GADCS Compliance By Sarah DiCicco, MBA* What is the Medicare Ground Ambulance Data Collection Survey (GADCS)? The Medicare GADCS is a one-time requirement established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that mandates all providers of ground ambulance transportation to report department statistics such as expenditures, utilization, […]
LATEST EFFORT TO “FIX” THE NO SURPRISES ACT By Ed Marasco, MPM, CMTE, EMT-P (Ret.) * On Friday (10-27-23) CMS issued a press release and fact sheet outlining the key elements of the new proposed rule governing key aspects of the No Surprises Act (NSA). As you may recall, the two (2) most recent […]
Colossal Fail – ET3! By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CAC, CACO, CADS, * What Happened? When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport (ET3) Model as a nationwide demonstration program, I was excited. When speaking with my colleagues in the EMS industry, I gushed how I […]
Sign on the Dotted Line! Properly Obtaining Patient Signatures in the Field. By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CAC, CACO, CADS * Can you boast a 100% signature rate? In my 37 years of EMS field experience, I can boast a 100% patient signature success rate…NOT! It’s a joke that circulates between my EMS billing […]
