Colleagues,

Another Fantastic Meeting!
We wrapped up our Ohio-ACC 21st Annual Meeting on October 15. We had wonderful speakers, terrific attendance and outstanding support. Our fellows-in-training poster and oral competitions were excellent. Take a look at the photos and details by going here. Special thanks to our program directors, Dr. Jennifer Cummings and Dr. Laxmi Mehta. Please save the date for next year's meeting on October 13, 2012; we will be inaugurating the Dr. Richard P. Lewis Memorial Lecture at this meeting. Please plan to be there.  

Focus on Fraud and Abuse
I would like to draw your attention to the November 17th issue of the ACC's Advocate Newsletter article about demonstration programs coming to Ohio in 2012:

"CMS recently announced two new demonstration programs designed to root out fraud and abuse that may impact cardiovascular specialists.

• The Recovery Audit Prepayment Review program will rely on Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) to conduct prepayment claims reviews to assist in lowering the improper payment rate and to identify potential fraud and abuse in Medicare. Initially, the demonstration will focus on inpatient hospital claims, particularly short stays, based on CMS data illustrating a high improper payment rate. Eleven states (CA, FL, IL, LA, MI, MO, NY, NC, OH, PA and TX) will be included in this program.
• The Part A to Part B Rebilling Demonstration program will focus on inpatient billing for services that should have been performed in the outpatient setting and billed under Medicare Part B, rather than Part A. Under the demonstration program, providers will be able to resubmit claims denied under Part A for wrong place of service, provided the service would have been considered reasonable and necessary had it been billed properly initially. Medicare will pay the provider 90 percent of the Medicare Part B allowable in exchange for agreeing to waive appeal rights.

Robert E. Hobbs, MD, FACC
President