Sequestration Update It Happened… Our last blog warned of the possibility that the “Sequester” was going to hit. If you missed that blog, we provided you with information about the government sequester which, at that point, was still being debated in a standoff between Congress and The White House. Well, March came in like a […]
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 Sequestration? For many years there […]
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 program. The […]
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 amending the regulations for schedule, […]
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 answers as we see it […]
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 requiring that every provider/supplier provide […]
EMS Patient Care Report Writing | Documentation 101 | Part 10 – Miscellaneous Welcome to Part 10, the final installment in our twelve-week continuing blog series “EMS Patient Care Reporting Writing/Documentation 101”. Part 1: EMS Patient Care Report Writing Part 2: Field Notes Part 3: Patient Demographics Part 4a: Nature of Dispatch – Emergency vs. […]
EMS Patient Care Report Writing | Documentation 101 | Part 9 – Medical Necessity Welcome to Part 9 in our continuing blog series “EMS Patient Care Reporting Writing/Documentation 101”. Part 1: EMS Patient Care Report Writing Part 2: Field Notes Part 3: Patient Demographics Part 4a: Nature of Dispatch – Emergency vs. Non-Emergency Part 4b: […]
President Obama Signs Act Extending Ambulance Bonus Payments President Obama has signed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 into law. In addition to insuring that thousands of Americans will not be assessed higher payroll deduction taxes for the balance of 2012, most importantly to the ambulance industry it means the […]
Bill to Extend Ambulance Relief Payments for Remainder of 2012 Passes On the coattails… The much anticipated “tax cut” bill has been passed by Congress! Ambulance companies across the United States were holding their collective breath as the temporary Medicare bonus payments of 2% urban, 3% rural and 22.6% super rural were set to once […]
