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 […]
Railroad Medicare Pre-Pay Review Upcoming It’s coming… In communication from Railroad Medicare (Palmetto GBA) last week, the ambulance industry was notified that the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board Office of Inspector General (RRB OIG) and the Office of Inspector General U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS OIG) together with internal data analysts had ordered […]
Presidential Politics and EMS Possibly the Most Colorful Race Ever In case you haven’t noticed, 2016 ushers in another Presidential election year. It’s time for the United States of America to elect a new White House occupant. This election cycle is turning out to be one of the most colorful ever in U.S. history as […]
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 […]
New Year’s Resolutions for a Happy EMS Billing Office It’s 2016! Wow! It’s 2016! It’s hard to believe we’ve entered a New Year. Wasn’t the 4th of July like yesterday? Ready or not, here we are. It’s January and time to make those famous New Year’s resolutions. Of course, in the spirit of all things […]
You ARE a Gift! The Season This season is a busy time! If you’re all like all of us, we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to find that perfect gift, at the perfect price for that special someone. The holiday season is also a time to reflect. As we […]
The Power of EMS in Politics What’s it all mean? It’s hard to ignore that we are fast rolling into the election cycle to choose the next President of the United States. Media outlets everywhere are bombarding us with the latest sound bites and poll numbers, ad nauseum. But, what’s it all mean for EMS. […]
Using the Buddy System to Prepare PCRs Where’d the day go? As a billing company, we often hear tales of woe as the administrative persons we work with share their challenges over getting their staff to complete Patient Care Reports in regular fashion. Let’s face it, EMS is a busy world. We’ve all had those days […]
Explaining the Ambulance Inflation Factor This Week This week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the Ambulance Inflation Factor (AIF) for Calendar Year 2016 (CY 2016). For the first time ever the AIF is a negative value, meaning it will impact the National Medicare Ambulance Fee Schedule by a negative four tenths of […]
Documenting Incidents for Public Places/Stand-By Events We are asked… Here at the billing office we often are asked questions about documenting EMS incidents that take place in public places and many times during stand-by events. There are the events where your EMS agency is engaged such as high school sporting events, community events such as […]
