Sequester Could Have Negative Impact on Ambulance Medicare Payments In the News… Congress and President Obama are in the news again over another game of brinksmanship just two months after narrowly avoiding the drop over the “fiscal cliff.” This time the sequestration process threatens to cut Medicare reimbursements. What is...
Medical Necessity is a Necessity By Definition Effectively documenting the Medical Necessity of an ambulance transport to support billing has always been a central component of complying with all of the many rules and regulations, as spearheaded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, a.k.a “The Feds”). Enhanced...
Commitment, Education, Resources- 3 Keys to Embracing Technology in EMS Explosion! What a technology explosion we've witnessed over the past several years! Literally right before our eyes, that computer wonder that once took massive rooms full of moving parts and whirring discs shrunk to power in the palm of our...
Ambulance Industry Avoids Fiscal Cliff (For Now) A Sigh of Relief! The ambulance industry avoided its own “Fiscal Cliff” when Congress took final action late New Year’s Day by passing the American Taxpayer Relief Act (H.R. 8), which President Obama quickly signed into law on January 2nd. It was a...
MedPAC- A.K.A. Grinch!The ambulance industry now has a Grinch!That Grinch, MedPAC, looks to snatch a Merry Christmas from the EMS industry thanks to recommendations handed up to Congress in November.MedPAC, short for the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission is the independent Congressional agency that advises Congress on issues affecting the Medicare...
PCS — Who Can Sign? Signature Focus In our last blog post we visited new rules surrounding repetitive transports and the execution of the Physicians Certification Statement (PCS). This post will primarily focus on how to insure the person signing is correct for the PCS you have obtained. Requirement… Remember...
PCS - Not a Prescription! "Never mimic the PCS . . ." If you’ve ever attended an Enhanced documentation class, you’ll probably remember hearing the caution “Never mimic the PCS in your narrative.” We’ve taught this for years. Now CMS is backing that statement up with their new final rule...
Avoid the Ambulance Industry's "Fiscal Cliff" Call to Action! This week’s blog is a Call to Action!! Earlier this week Stephen Williamson, President of the American Ambulance Association, sent out a stern warning concerning the looming expiration of the temporary Medicare ambulance add-on bonus payments that can disappear when 2012...
Medicare Revalidation - Why? Why? Since the first day that CMS announced the revalidation process for Medicare, we’ve been asked the same question time after time. Why do we have to do this? Well a simple question begs a not so simple answer. We’ll do our best to provide you...
Medicare Revalidation in Full Swing for Ambulance What is Revalidation? Just about one year ago we blogged concerning the CMS call for Medicare revalidation. CMS mandated at that time for every Medicare provider/supplier to be subject to revalidation. Basically revalidation is like hitting the reset button with Medicare. CMS is...
