Medicare vs Medicaid- What’s the Difference? Interchangeable? It seems that often EMS people like to interchange the words Medicare and Medicaid. While similar in scope, the reality is these programs are two uniquely different government offerings. We thought it would be helpful to define the two programs and call attention to their similarities and differences. […]
Winter Flu Season- How to Document? Holidays Behind Us…Enter Flu Season We trust that you had a wonderful holiday season filled with many WARM memories (and we emphasize WARM!) We’re back to our normal routine so let’s dig into a direct documentation topic…. How to document transports that are initiated either directly or indirectly due […]
Medicare Bonus Payments Expire- What’s Next? December 31, 2017, 2359 Hours… When the New Years ball begins its drop in New York City on December 31, 2017 at 2359 hours, so will the Medicare Fee Schedule Bonus Payments drop. Those of you who operate in urban zip codes will see 2% less, rural zip codes […]
“NICE” by Default Naughty or Nice? It’s that time of year when we all wonder where we fall on ol’ Saint Nick’s magic list. Where do you stand? Will a big old lump of coal hit your stocking or will Santa hit your chimney with a whole bunch of toys? It’s the stuff we have […]
Winter Weather, Injuries and EMS Documentation for Billing ‘Tis the Season! Here in the Northeast we experienced the first significant snowfall of the year. Additionally, last week saw an unprecedented ice and snow event roll through even the Deep South. Of course, all of us in EMS know that snow and ice bring falls. Bones […]
“Dear Santa”…a letter from the Billing Office We intercepted… It’s one of those things that happens. A piece of mail floated into our billing office mailbox just this week and behold it was a note to Santa from a billing office far, far away. Good ol’ Uncle Sam’s delivery guys saw billing on it and […]
Dissecting the Ambulance Inflation Factor for 2018 AIF Announced The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the Ambulance Inflation Factor (AIF) for Calendar Year 2018 (CY 2018). Once again this year, the AIF is positive so let’s take a look at how we’ve arrived at this adjustment. CPI-U – MFP = AIF Two […]
Gary’s Granola: Fiber for Today’s EMS Professionals Bloggers note- we’re featuring a post written by our Quick Med Claims colleague and retired paramedic, Gary Harvat. This week, he reflects on his 40+ year career… Earthward Bound A few weeks ago I had the unfortunate experience of plummeting to the ground while on a ladder sixteen […]
Mixing Business and Billing: EMS Documentation Impact on Billing and Reimbursement Periodically we re-post useful information authored by those we respect in the industry. Recently, Dan Pedersen of Page, Wolfberg and Wirth (www.pwwemslaw.com) shared this excellent posting on EMS1.com. The post is filled with great information regarding EMS documentation and its impact on billing and reimbursement. We […]
Dissecting “The Misunderstoods”- Part II- Billing for SCT Bloggers note- early last year we posted a popular 2-part series talking about a subject we affectionately called “The Misunderstoods.” Because we periodically field questions about these two levels of service and the complexity of documenting properly to obtain maximum reimbursement, we’re offering up the series again […]
