When Compassion and Compliance Collide New initiatives By now many of you, especially those of you who provide scheduled, routine, non-emergency transports (ie. Dialysis, radiation, etc.) are becoming aware of a new Medicare trial initiative for pre-authorizing approval for claims submitted for these types of transports. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) chose […]
Documentation Skills and the Long-Time EMS Provider New Tricks You’ve heard the phrase; “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Well that may be true about canines, but it certainly isn’t the case with us humans. It’s especially not the case with EMS providers. Long-time EMS providers should have learned a long time ago […]
One Last Look at Ambulance Billing in 2014- What’s Next? You Deserve a Break! We’re going to make this our last blog post for 2014. You deserve a break! But before we sign-off to celebrate the season, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on the year that’s been just one last time. Let’s […]
The End to Medicare “Back Billing” Save the Date! Mark this date on your calendar- February 3, 2015. This is the date that sweeping and historic changes will take effect for the Medicare program. Late last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final rule on the Medicare Incentive Program and […]
CMS Releases 2015 Zip Code Changes Affecting Ambulance Bonus Payments AAA Challenges CMS-Revisions Possible Change Announced Last week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final rule that sets in motion a significant shift in the way that geographical areas are determined to identify urban versus rural areas for ambulance fee schedule […]
Why so much personal information? Congratulations! So you say you’ve just been elected to the Board of Directors or you’ve become an Officer or both for your local EMS Agency. Congratulations! We applaud your willingness to step up to lend your wisdom and leadership capabilities to make a difference in the lives of those in […]
The “Continuous Monitoring” Factor for Inter-facility, Non-emergency Ambulance Transports From the Open Door Forum One of the staples of being an ambulance biller is religiously following any information provided by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Ambulance billers can easily follow CMS by participating in the Ambulance Open Door Forum audio-conferences. The Open […]
EMS Patient Care Report Writing | Documentation 101 | Part 9 – Medical Necessity The “Best” of the Ambulance Billing Services blog Two years ago we put together a “Documentation 101” series of eleven educational blogs, covering what we determined to be the fine points of writing an effective Patient Care Report. Since then, the […]
Movement Barriers and Medical Necessity Outside-the-Norm Questions Our office receives questions from our EMS agency clients, periodically, regarding patients that have some kind of movement barrier connected to the treatment/transport scenario. These are the patients that have some sort of physical or structural challenge that exists between where they reside and the point where they […]
Is Your EMS Agency Experiencing Payer Mix Shuffle? It’s happening now… There’s no doubt healthcare in America is being changed daily. The Affordable Care Act (of you may refer to it as “Obamacare”) is changing the face of the healthcare and the health insurance landscape in America. How is all of this affecting your EMS […]
