Latest from Kareo

Out-Source or In-Source Your Medical Billing: How Do You Decide?

By Sara M. Larch, MSHA, FACMPE

Whenever I'm asked my opinion about whether outsourcing your billing to an external billing vendor or handling it in your practice (in sourcing) is the best approach, my first question is, why are you asking? Most often the question has been prompted by a concern that the medical group's billing performance is just not good enough! They go on to say that they have "heard" that outsourcing or in sourcing is the best way to go but they usually have very little detail to back up their concern. So, how do you decide? Read More

Best Practices

Why Your Practice Needs a Master Coder

By Judy Capko

Medical practices are faced with a number of changes each year, some of them unexpected. But one change that comes each year are the changes in the annual revision of current procedure terminology (CPT) codes. In 2011 there are 212 new codes, 106 revisions and 110 deleted CPT codes. Are you ready? If not, there's a chance your payments will be stalled and some services may go unpaid if you don't apply these changes... Read More

You are invited to join us for a complimentary one-hour webinar:

What You Need to Know for 2011 - Maximizing Medical Billing and Revenue Management

Tuesday, January 25, 2011
1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST

Speaker: Judy Capko

Learn how to make 2011 a successful year for your practice or business with Judy Capko, author of the popular book Secrets of the Best-Run Practices and expert speaker and consultant in practice management. During this informative complimentary one-hour webinar, you will gain insights on how to:

• Get YOU paid for what YOU do
• Know what data you need to guide decision-making - and how to use it
• Assess strategies to improve financial performance
• Understand and utilize key components of the financial mindset
• And much more

Register Now

You can also view complimentary archived webinars recently presented by Kareo featuring speaker Elizabeth W. Woodcock, MBA, FACMPE, CPC:

• Best Practices in Medical Billing: What the Most Successful Practices Know that You Don't
• Key Performance Indicators in Medical Billing: How to Make 2011 More Profitable for Your Practice than 2010
 


Case Study La Familia Guidance Center: Converting Chaos to Kareo Brings Bottom-line Benefits Linda Leach Change can be hard, but it's often accompanied by significant benefits. Just ask Linda Leach and the management of La Familia Guidance Center in St. Paul, MN. Linda had been working with La Familia as a contract accountant for a number of years when she became convinced that the Center's manual productivity and claims processes were hemorrhaging its stream of revenue... Read More

 


Case Study Broadleaf Health: Getting it Right The First Time Paul Bernard, Broadleaf Health Paul Bernard believes in data and the real-time benefits of process measurement. In fact, his broad experience in building improved billing systems for clients outside the healthcare industry, as well as his research into up-and-coming business sectors, were the reasons he decided to buy a controlling interest in a California-based medical billing company in 2009. "I became convinced during my research that success in the medical billing industry could be achieved by having the right technology and disciplined process management," he states... Read More

 

Billing Tip of the Month

How to Quickly Work Claims That Need to Be Corrected and Resubmitted

By Cheri Freeman, CMRS, Manager of Account Services, Virginia College Healthcare Reimbursement Services, LLC

When working claims that need to be corrected in some way and resubmitted, such as adding a modifier, I have discovered that Kareo allows me to make those corrections and rebill the claims much easier and more accurately than ever, especially when working denied line items from an ERA. When reviewing an ERA, if I see a denied line item and I can see that a correction is in order, such as modifier needing to be appended to the claim and resubmitted, I can... Read More

Top News and Ideas from Industry



 


Medicare Incentive Programs Pay Millions to Practices

Chris Silva, Amednews, Jan. 7, 2011

Incentive payments resulted in millions of dollars being distributed among hundreds of physician practices that participated in health care delivery demonstration models the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is testing. The average payment per practice is $18,100, but some practices earned as much as $62,500.... Read More

Bringing PAs and NPs on Board: What to Do If You're Hiring

Victoria Stagg Elliott, Amednews, Jan. 10, 2011

If you are considering employing a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant, the success of the hire likely rests on one simple question: What do you want the person to do? That may be harder to answer than it seems... Read More

Practice-Vendor Alliance Should Be Put in Writing

Steven M. Harris, Amednews, Jan. 10, 2011

How do you protect yourself and your practice to ensure that technology meets your needs, remains current and can be fixed if it breaks even if the vendor you hire goes out of business? The answer is to prepare for these challenges at the beginning of the relationship - through your contract... Read More

Data Breaches May Lurk in Office Copiers and Printers

Pamela Lewis Dolan, Amednews, Jan. 10, 2011

It's a common practice for many physician offices to scan copies of patients' insurance cards, Social Security numbers and driver's licenses and keep them on file. Throwing those copies into a trash bin would be considered a violation of patient privacy. But physician offices could be putting that patient data at just as much risk when it comes time to replace the copy machine... Read More

EHR or EMR?

Peter Garrett, Office of Communications and Joshua J. Seidman, PhD, Director Meaningful Use, ONC, Jan. 4, 2011

In a Health IT Buzz Blog this week, Electronic Medical Record vs. Electronic Health Record: Clarifying the EHR/EMR Difference, ONC acknowledges that "some people use the terms 'electronic medical record' and 'electronic health record' (or 'EMR' and 'EHR') interchangeably. But here at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), you'll notice we use electronic health record or EHR almost exclusively..." Read More

Coding Changes to Note for 2011



 


AMA Makes More Corrections to CPT 2011

AAPC News, Jan. 3, 2011

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently published updates to CPT Category I and III codes for 2011. The AMA has made a couple of noteworthy changes to its original CPT 2011 corrections document. To ensure accurate reporting of health care services, you'll need to correct your codebook with a parenthetical note in the Surgery section and an introductory guideline in the Medicine section. While there, you'll also need to make an important change in the Vaccination Products subsection... Read More

PECOS Ordering/Referring Edit Reset

AAPC News, Jan. 3, 2011

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has rescinded its previous announcement that, beginning Jan. 3, 2011, claims for certain ordered/referred Part B items and services will not be paid if the ordering/referring provider on the claim does not have an enrollment record in the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System (PECOS). The new "placeholder" implementation date for this Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) provision - known as Phase 2 - is July 5, 2011... Read More

ASC Interpretive Guidelines Clarified

AAPC News, Jan. 3, 2011

A comprehensive history and physical (H&P) may be performed on the same day as the surgical procedure in an ambulatory surgical center (ASC) "as long as the H&P is performed by qualified personnel, is comprehensive, and is placed in the patient's ASC medical record prior to surgery," the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently clarified in new guidance for state survey agency directors... Read More

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