3 More Months – Medicare Extenders Extended! By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CADS* H.R. 1968 The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, to fund the federal government through the end of the 2025 fiscal year ending with September 30th was passed just as last week’s legislative session closed on Friday evening. Included in […]
MEDICARE AMBULANCE ADD-ON PAYMENTS By Ed Marasco, MPM, CMTE, EMT-P (Ret.) The Ambulance Community in the United States has been under siege since COVID. From the operational challenges associated with a global pandemic to the difficulties with staffing to the ongoing reimbursement shortfalls, it is not a good time for EMS and Ambulance Service […]
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 […]
Medicare Add-On Payment Brinksmanship – AGAIN!! By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., EMT-B, CADS* Tired of the Game! Speaking entirely for myself, I’m really tired of the game of brinksmanship surrounding the Medicare add-on payments to the Medicare ambulance fee schedule. I know I share the sentiments of the majority of the American ambulance industry when […]
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 […]
Medicare Prior Authorization Expansion- What Does It Mean for You? By Chuck Humphrey, B.A., CAC, CACO, CADS, EMT-B* The Time Has Come Unless you are Rip Van Winkle and you’ve been snoozing for a long, long winter’s nap, I’m hoping by now that you are aware that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) […]
Transported for HIGHER Level of Care By Katie Harrison and Chuck Humphrey, QMC Compliance Team If we had a dollar… Here in our QMC billing office, if we had a dollar for every time we have opened a patient care report (PCR) to read the documentation of an ambulance transport from one facility to another […]
