Medicare Changes Proposed Last Week Big news hit the ambulance industry’s electronic inboxes last week, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the calendar year 2020 Proposed Rule with revisions to Payment Policies under the Physician Fee Schedule including Other Changes to Part B Payment Policies. Two ambulance industry changes were embedded […]
Beware of the Compliance Warning Signs! Big Bucks! It has always been important for any ambulance billing program to follow the narrow road of compliance. But now more than ever and with big bucks on the line, it’s important that every EMS administrator heed the compliance warning signs. The headlines tell of those who either […]
Congressional Bill Introduced to “Fix” Veteran Transportation Gap H.R. 3350 A bi-partisan supported bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that will amend title 38 of the United States Code and allow for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to reimburse veterans for the cost of emergency medical transportation to a […]
An EMS Biller’s Motivation Gotta love it! EMS billing is a very unique and interesting occupation. Ya gotta love it, for sure, to do it. We love EMS billing and everything to do with EMS billing, including billing for ground and air ambulance transports, paratransit trips, mobile integrated healthcare services, and even paramedic intercepts. The […]
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 […]
4 Important Things EMS Field Practices to Aid Billing Billing is Important! As an EMS provider in the field, if you think you can ignore what goes on in the office- especially the billing part- then you don’t see the bigger picture. Billing is important! Modern EMS is expensive. Most trucks are now a 6-figure […]
EMS Week- It’s a Brave New World Out There! 1966 It became fairly obvious in 1966 that there needed to be a system for caring ill and injured patients in an emergency using a system of urgency. Yes, 53 years ago, a document entitled Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society was […]
Supporting Upgrades in Care Using Detailed Documentation Dispatched to…Arrived to Find You’re riding an ALS rig today, the BLS crew is tied up and you and your partner are dispatched by default for a call that has been determined via EMD to be a BLS Emergency for a patient with back pain. You respond accordingly […]
What Service is Not Available? Inter-Facility Transfers This week’s blog will focus on inter-facility transports. For the most part, we’ll discuss hospital-to-hospital transfers where the patient has been treated at one hospital but must move to a different hospital in most cases for care that is not provided at the facility where they currently are […]
Balance Billing Under the Microscope Growing Concern For some time now, there seems to be a swell of growing concern regarding the practice of balance billing and especially under the microscope is the ambulance industry- air- and ground-ambulance alike. In some cases, there has arisen an almost villainization of the practice that so many ambulance […]
