Search

2002 SEP 9 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A new study indicates that the number of family physicians who are no longer taking new Medicare patients is 28% higher than [...]

2002 AUG 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- QMed, Inc., (QMED) announced that it has launched its project for coronary artery disease in the much anticipated Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration [...]

2002 AUG 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- As Congress considers legislative proposals aimed at saving Medicare+Choice, a new study published July 17, 2002, on the Health Affairs website shows [...]

Medicare beneficiaries last week sued HHS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in an effort to force the agency to establish a beneficiary appeals process mandated by Congress [...]

Given the shortage of radiologists and increasing demand for diagnostic tests, radiology practices are beginning to consider employing radiology physician assistants for support tasks such as examining patients, reviewing medical [...]

The federal government is finally recognizing what the PET community has known for some time: The modality plays an important role in disease management. After taking years to endorse its [...]

Dear Francine and Robert: My aging father and I never had a close relationship when I was growing up. Then during my 20's and 30's, we disagreed and butted heads [...]

ATLANTA -- Weight management programs for kids have varying degrees of success, but the viability of such programs in the pediatric setting is crippled by extremely low reimbursement rates, according [...]

Don't mess with Texas--or North Carolina--when it comes to Medicare hassles. Both state medical associations ask their members about their Medicare hassles and present them to local carriers and the [...]

Question Our office staff just discovered dozens of unfiled Medicare claims that are more than 1 year old. Is there any way we can file these claims and get paid? [...]

As safeguard and enforcement actions for Medicare have increased, so have provider concerns about their interaction with claims administration contractors, says Leslie Aronovitz, the General Accounting Office's director for health [...]

Don't mess with Texas--or North Carolina--when it comes to Medicare hassles. Both state medical associations ask their members about their Medicare hassles and present them to local carriers and the [...]

Don't mess with Texas--or North Carolina--when it comes to Medicare hassles. Both state medical associations ask their members about their Medicare hassles and present them to local carriers and the [...]

For years physicians have been perceived in the eyes of the world as having it all in terms of prestige, economic success, and other advantages. It would seem that they [...]

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of recent abuses of the "free sample" system in physician's offices, some pharmaceutical companies are opting for vouchers to better track drug samples. Dr. Paul [...]

Cutting the number of Medicare claims-processing contractors to '18 to 20' that are committed to the program and moving them from cost-plus contracts to performance-based ones would have a bigger [...]

The federal government in 1983 kicked healthcare providers out of a comfortable world in which Medicare made reimbursements based on costs. They landed in a new world where they needed [...]

* Medicare Needs a Better Handle on Nonphysician Billings. Medicare billings from nonphysician providers are rising rapidly, but fiscal intermediaries processing Medicare claims 'do not have sufficient guidance to distinguish [...]

Q:1 sometimes comanage cataract patients. How wilt the new HCFA complex cataract surgery code affect me? A: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly Health Care Financing Administration) will [...]

MedUnite acquires the country's second-largest medical electronic claims processing system As MCOs rely more and more on electronic networks for sharing information with providers and clients, the security and privacy […]

Based on analysis drawn from both Medicare cost report (MCR) data and proprietary benchmarking information, a majority of hospitals are continuing to struggle financially. The MCR data revealed that the [...]

High-profile computer hackers usually find their names in the paper after sabotaging Amazon.com or shutting down CNN's Web site. But some of the nation's most sensitive patient data may be [...]

Anyone with a vested interest in medical technology probably knows all too well the nightmare stories of worthy products in which their launch was either scrubbed or delayed because payers, [...]

Hospital staff spends at least 30 minutes on paperwork for every hour of care provided to, a typical Medicare patient, a study from the American Hospital Association said. The study [...]

IMPROPER PAYMENT RATES Medically unnecessary services, unsupported services, coding errors, and noncovered services were the largest error categories in an HHS report on improper payment in fee-for-service Medicare. HHS' Office [...]

Double billing of the Medicare program continues to be a significant problem, the office of the Inspector General reports. The agency studied 1998 Medicare claims data involving a sample of [...]

Hospitals may get some relief from an aggravating paperwork headache. One regulatory change Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson will push for this year is permitting patients who make [...]

Lab operators are still waiting for the Health Care Financing Administration to finalize the proposed changes recommended by the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee. Even though the committee completed its work on [...]

As Wisconsin governor, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says he was one of the many who loved to hate the Health Care Financing Administration. But that's all changed [...]

OVER THE LAST 24 months, the durable medical equipment regional carriers have taken to using a controversial method of validating the medical need for a piece of home medical equipment: [...]

If you're an HME provider considering expanding into the rehab market, there's something you should know. A company has a greater chance for success in the market if it is [...]

PROPERLY CODING wheelchair claims for submission to Medicare is an ongoing difficulty for many home medical equipment providers - even though the wheelchair codes in the Health Care Financing Administration's [...]

Question I belong to a group practice with three primary care physicians and one nurse practitioner (NP). One of our new doctors (who has been with us less than 5 [...]

* HCFA's Common Working File System for paying Medicare claims does not screen out reimbursement claims for services improperly billed to two or more Part B carriers, says a recent [...]

Federal payment rates for Medicare+Choice (M+C) managed care plans will increase by about 5.3 percent in most counties, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) said today. Payment rates in other [...]

HCFA must work with skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) to ensure that they can correctly and consistently perform resident assessments required to develop appropriate plans of care and bill Medicare accurately, [...]

Twenty-seven percent of psychiatric services provided in nursing homes are medically unnecessary, accounting for as much as $22.6 million in inappropriate Medicare payments in 1999, says a report by the [...]

Dr. Henley offered family physicians these E&M coding pearls: * Consultation. "Family docs do a lot of consultations. We just don't code for a lot of consultations. But consultations generally [...]

DALLAS -- Family physicians typically lose 1O%-30% of their potential income year after year due to poor CPT coding, according to nationally recognized coding expert Dr. Douglas E. Henley. National [...]

DALLAS -- The biggest step that most family physicians could take toward better CPT coding is simple: Just buy a new CPT manual annually and spend a couple hours reading [...]

The new CPT codes and Medicare 2001 laboratory fee schedule are available to users. CPT codes are the copyright of the AMA and can be purchased from a variety of [...]

Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans, which process claims for the Medicare program, say that HCFA is cutting allotments in fiscal 2001 to individual contractors despite a 4.5 percent hike in the [...]

Medicare payment rates to physicians will increase 4.5% on average next year, according to projections from the Health Care Financing Administration. The updated physician fee schedule for calendar year 2001, [...]

If you want to get an argument going at a local senior citizens' center, just ask the seniors what they think about making changes to Social Security and Medicare. Then [...]

Home health providers certainly are wary of the unknown effects of the new Medicare prospective payment system for home-care services that starts Oct. 1. But they also see it as [...]

Hospital groups may formally ask HCFA to rewrite the regulations that describe which facilities are eligible for reimbursement under the new Medicare outpatient prospective payment system. If HCFA agrees to [...]

President Clinton has ordered Medicare to start reimbursing for routine patient care costs and expenses due to medical complications associated with participation in clinical trials. Similar coverage for cancer clinical [...]