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Here's what our members are saying about us...
"In late February, the local CBS affiliate ran a 3 minute "public interest" (?) story on 2 women that feel they were injured by a chiropractic adjustment. While my patients trust me and what I do to be safe, like most chiropractic patients, they needed help talking to friends and family members about the safety and effectiveness of their choice to continue getting adjusted.
Less than 2 weeks after the TV story, the In Touch Newsletter arrived at my door with its lead article being a review of the Spine article showing no statistical connection between chiropractic adjustments and stroke. I loved it. It is displayed prominently in my office."
Dr. Tim Knight
Arlington, MA
"Voice For Health is so well received - patients ask for them. It is a wonderful publication, entertaining and informative in the right kind of language."
Dr. Gerald Arndt
Coshocton, OH
"Thanks for your commitment to the cause and your great Voice For Health publication over the years."
Dr. Robson Timbs
Malvern, South Australia
"Continuous patient education is a MUST. The problem is, how do you do this and keep it fresh, interesting, and informative all at the same time? That’s where Dr. Kim Stetzel’s WEEKLY HANDOUTS Program comes in! She’s done the work. She’s created interesting and informative, full color handouts. All you have to do is put them in your patient’s hands and let the handouts speak for themselves! I highly recommend this program for anyone who is interested in growing and maintaining a Lifetime Family Wellness practice."
Dr. George Auger
Greenville, SC
"What a great program. With our busy schedule, we didn’t always get time to put out regular patient education. Now, we just print out quality, full color, professional looking handouts on our color printer each week. WOW! thanks for taking the work out of consistent patient education."
Drs. Kevorkian & Giuliano
Westwood, MA
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| Monday, Aug 09, 2010 |
| CMS Clarifies Signature Requirements for Medicare Participating Docs |
| By John Davila, D.C. |
| Monday, Aug 09, 2010 03:34 |
Most physicians would prefer to avoid being targeted in the cross hairs of a Medicare auditor. The key to doing so, is to understand and follow CMS' recently updated signature guidelines.
Physicians need to make sure everything is signed and legible and will support the service that was rendered to the patient. That's the best way to avoid claims denials and attempted recovery of previously paid benefits by CMS auditors.
The information spelled out in the CMS directives cover:
- handwritten signatures and acceptable signature formats,
- valid electronic signatures,
- attestation statements on unsigned documentation, and
- signature logs.
Physicians must understand that the clinician's signature serves as authentication of services rendered or ordered therefore, CMS will not accept signature stamps for Medicare or Medicaid claims. Physicians also will want to pay close attention to the CMS guidelines because the agency has created a small army of auditors to review Medicare claims.
Those auditors include recovery audit contractors, or RACs; zone program integrity contractors; program safeguard contractors; and comprehensive error rate testing contractors, according to the article in MLN Matters.
All of the above entities are responsible for "measuring, detecting and correcting improper payments, as well as identifying potential fraud in the fee-for-service Medicare program.
What physicians may not know is that the auditors share information. If physicians are not following all the prescribed rules -- for example, if patient records are going unsigned or physicians scribble an illegible signature -- then physicians could end up under the microscope of more than one of the audit contractor groups.
The issues that are under review -- as well as the percentage of errors found -- are published by Medicare administrative contractors and may be the basis for further review by an RAC or even a Medicaid integrity contractor.
In addition, Hughes said, other staff members in the medical practice need to stay current on CMS regulations, too. It's critical that physicians train all staff members who respond to a CMS contractor's requests for records, she said. Staff members must learn to thoroughly review all paperwork, including signature lines, before any documents are released to CMS auditors for scrutiny.
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Compliant Services & Solutions Inc's website
Send an email to Dr. Davila |
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| Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010 |
| Improving Patient Care and the Bottom Line Through Compliance |
| By John Davila, D.C. |
| Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010 02:36 |
As providers who are usually in solo practice, it can feel like you are out on an island all alone when it comes to patient care. So, the next best thing to having a doctor as a partner is creating a "compliance officer" in your practice. Although compliance officers don't directly treat patients, they can still significantly affect the patients' quality of care by finding blind spots the practice might have because you have to play both treating doctor and business owner. Another benefit is that this position can be safeguard to your organizations by performing some duties you might not be doing at this time.
The compliance officer's duties are to be the eyes and ears of the doctor to recognize when something may have happened that needs immediate attention in order to head-off a future compliance issue before that situation becomes large enough to trigger an insurance company audit or a patient complaint to the board of examiners. With the main purpose of being compliance to be better corporate partners with insurance companies and provide better patient care as obvious and easily attainable goals, one of the byproducts of this position is lowering the cost of doing business. This happens because of the more frequent creation of claims that are clean and never challenged by the carrier. In addition, the patient who has a better understanding of the financial policies in the office will never get a bill they are not prepared for and have a reduced chance of filing a complaint with their insurance carrier or your board of examiners.
To start the process you will need to create some training for an employee to bring them up to speed in order to become a compliance officer. The first place to look is in the Federal Register to review the Office of inspector General's final rule for "Compliance Program for Individual and Small Group Physician Practices". This notice from the OIG was released in October of 2000 and contains all of the procedures needed for a compliance officer to become an effective watchdog for your practice.
Other things that should be done by a compliance officer include:
- Ensure compliance with state law
- Investigate allegations of falsified medical records related to patient care
- Maintain an internal reporting system for documentation requests and letters of nonpayments from insurance companies, their causes, and efforts to prevent recurrence
- Learn system requirements to ensure patient safety, and raise the issue of patient safety implications of new technology
- Investigate patient and family concerns about safety and quality
- Communicate your institution's commitment to improving quality and avoiding errors as part of your compliance communications
Over the past few years, the practices that have created this type of position have avoided possible land mines that would have caused huge audits patient complaints. One of our client's compliance officers found a macro billing code that contained a transposed CPT code. The billing macro was billing the wrong level E/M code of 99205 versus 99202 and if not caught would have most certainly raised the awareness of the insurance company to what would have been an incorrectly utilized code.
The good news is that there was a happy ending to this story. The carrier was notified and happily worked with the provider to fix the billing error without any further issues or problems. The carrier even thanked the provider for finding and fixing the problem.
Dr. John Davila is a 1994 graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, IA, and practiced in the Myrtle Beach, SC, area for 13 years. Since 2000, he has been consulting with insurance companies and doctors in private practice in the areas of coding and documentation. In 2001, he re-wrote the Medicare LCD chiropractic coverage policy for Palmetto GBA (SC Medicare). His company, Compliant Services & Solutions, Inc., helps doctors of chiropractic to ethically maximize their practices, while avoiding audits and repayments to insurance carriers. You can reach Dr. Davila by clicking on the link below. |
Compliant Services & Solutions Inc's website
Send an email to Dr. Davila |
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