Compliance Isn’t Easy Being Deliberate If your EMS agency is going to strive to be 100% compliant with all of the rules and regulations that we all have to navigate in the EMS billing arena, then it means that your organizational culture must be deliberate. Compliance isn’t easy. The problem with what we have just […]
Railroad Medicare Cites 32.6% Denial Rate in Widespread Review Here we go again… The Railroad Medicare program, administered by government contractor Palmetto Government Benefits Administrators (Palmetto GBA) has published the results of their latest “widespread review” of BLS Non-Emergency Transports. Here we go again… Continually, our industry is turning in dismal audit results with this […]
Properly Executing the Medicare ABN-Part II Just about one year ago, we used this blog space to publish a two-part series on how to properly execute the Medicare ABN. With the release of this new form, we think it is important to loop back and re-post the series once again this year since there will […]
UPDATE-Properly Executing the Medicare ABN-Part I Misunderstood The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the release of the revised Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage (ABN). It is important that those of us in the ambulance world who use this form on a regular basis begin to use this version immediately. Just […]
Repetitive Transport Documentation- Consistency is Important The Same Patient Repeat patients often suffer from chronic illnesses that persist during a period of their life span. Some patients never escape from their condition and others, thankfully improve to the point that they no longer require ambulance transportation. Because we interact with these patients, day in and […]
The Payer Mix Barometer Fascination Remember those big old barometers that your father or grandfather had on his desk or hanging on the wall? It probably had the company logo of the business where he worked and was one of those milestone gifts one picks out of a catalog of “rewards” to recognize years of […]
3 Reasons the Billing Office Can’t Bill Your EMS Incident Blogger’s Note… From time to time we pick out some of our most informative and memorable blog posts from the past and breathe new life into them. This is one of those posts. The information comes from a poll we conducted in our billing office […]
SSNRI and What it Means for EMS Agency What is SSNRI SSNRI is the Social Security Number Removal Initiative. The Federal Government is mandating that all Social Security Numbers (SSNs) be removed from Medicare cards by April 2019. A new number called the MBI- Medicare Beneficiary Number will replace the long-standing SSN-based Health Insurance Claim […]
New “Locality Rule”, New Problem Let’s Review If you’ve followed this space or have been connected to the EMS billing world for a fair amount of time, you should recognize the impact of the phrases “nearest hospital” and “closest appropriate facility.” Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rules for Medicare clearly stipulate that Medicare […]
The Do’s and Don’t’s of PCS Signatures Signature Focus The Physician Certification Statement (PCS), required by Medicare for all non-emergency transports, can confuse even the seasoned ambulance administrator and billing office. While the document itself can be confusing, determining the person who can properly sign can be an even more confusing scenario. Requirement… The Center […]
