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 […]
Small Change- Significant Impact New Year, New Numbers With the New Year comes new changes, especially from Medicare. We’ve all become accustomed to each new calendar year ushering in changes to the Medicare fee schedule. The New Year brings new numbers with dollar signs. This year, for the first time ever those numbers carried a […]
Additional Cut Looms for Ambulance Industry More Bad News This week saw more bad news for the ambulance industry. Leading economic indicators are pointing to a projected negative Ambulance Inflation Factor for 2016. It is projected that the AIF value in the New Year will decrease Medicare ambulance payments by -0.5%. While the number is […]
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, […]
Documenting Emergent Scenarios Post October 1 Focus If you’re a regular reader of this space you are aware that we focus A LOT on medical necessity, especially as the definitions contained in the rules pertain to Medicare. With anywhere from 40% to 60% or upward of the average ambulance reimbursements being derived from Medicare Fee-for-Service […]
Closest Appropriate? Explaining Destinations in the PCR Closest Appropriate Facility In the ambulance billing world, this 3-word phrase is discussed more than you’d realize- Closest Appropriate Facility. There are rules that differ in many cases between insurance payers, most notably between Medicare and Medicaid and even some commercial insurance payers regarding payment for transport miles […]
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 […]
The Importance of Building and Maintaining Relationships Beyond EMS – Part 2 Last week… This is the second part of a two-part series about building relationships within the healthcare community but outside of your EMS circles. Last week we explored why this is necessary and who we should be building those relationships with. In this […]
The Importance of Building and Maintaining Relationships Beyond EMS More and More… More and more we in EMS are being called upon to interact and develop relationships that go beyond our brothers and sisters in the Fire/EMS arena. It doesn’t matter what level of the organizational chart you serve, we all have a duty to […]
What the “Permanent Doc Fix” Means for EMS Yesterday Yesterday, March 26, 2015, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of H.R. 2 to do away with Medicare’s sustainable growth-rate formula and to pass what is commonly known as the permanent doc fix. Uncertainty Remains While the House passed the measure overwhelmingly, there’s still […]
