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Things to Consider Before Upgrading Medical Billing Software
August 11th, 2022 - Find-A-Code

Your practice has utilized the same medical billing software for years. The medical billing staff says it is time for a change. You don't necessarily disagree, but you also don't know where to begin your search for new software. There are so many vendors offering so many products that making sense of it all can be challenging.

Calendar Year 2023 Medicare Advantage and Part C & D Payment Policies
August 9th, 2022 - Aimee L. Wilcox, CPMA, CCS-P, CST, MA, MT

Each year CMS publishes an Advance Notice of the upcoming years Medicare Advantage (MA) Capitation Rates and Part C and Part D Payment Policies and asks for comments related to it. Each of the comments are carefully reviewed and responded to and often are impactful to changes seen between the Advance Notice and final publication referred to as the Rate Announcement. With health equity as a primary focus for 2023, CMS announced some policy changes that may impact your organization.

How CMS Determines Which Telehealth Services are Risk Adjustable
August 9th, 2022 - Aimee L. Wilcox, CPMA, CCS-P, CST, MA, MT

Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) have gone back and forth on whether or not to use data collected from telehealth, virtual Care, and telephone (audio-only) encounters with Medicare beneficiaries for risk adjustment reporting, but the following published documents from CMS cleared that up once and for all by providing an answer to a question specifically related to this question.

OIG Investigates SCAN Health for Risk Adjustment Overpayments With Surprising Results
July 26th, 2022 - Aimee L. Wilcox, CPMA, CCS-P, CST, MA, MT

We’ve seen a number of OIG risk adjustment data validation (RADV) audits recently where the independent review contractor was simply looking for any codes the payer reported that were not supported by the documentation, in an effort to declare an overpayment was made and monies are due to be repaid. However, it was refreshing to read this RADV audit and discover that the independent review contractor actually identified HCCs the payer failed to report that, while still resulting in an overpayment, was able to reduce the overpayment by giving credit for these additional HCCs. What lessons are you learning from reading these RADV audit reports?

Addressing Trauma and Mass Violence
July 21st, 2022 - Amanda Ballif

After events of mass violence, it’s easy to feel helpless, like there is little we can do. In fact, we can help individuals, families, and communities build resilience and connect with others to cope together. The SAMHSA-funded National Child Traumatic Stress Network has developed a range of resources to help children, families, educators, and communities including the following which you can access via links in this article.