On March 20th, 2015, CMS released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for Meaningful Use Stage 3, which is the final stage in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs.

In addition, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has announced the proposed 2015 Edition Certification Criteria for health IT products. These NPRMs were  published in the Federal Register on March 30 and are now available online. Together, these proposed rules focus on making the EHR Incentive programs more flexible, simplifying and reducing burden of providers participating in the program, driving the interoperability of health IT across systems and between providers, and improving patient outcomes.   read more

Thursday, April 16; 1:30-3pm ET

Space may be limited, register early. This MLN Connects National Provider Call provides a walkthrough of the Physician Value (PV) - Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) Registration System, an application that serves the Value Modifier (VM) and PQRS programs. Groups can register via the PV-PQRS Registration System from April 1 through June 30, 2015, using an Individuals Authorized Access to the CMS Computer Services (IACS) user ID and password. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.

Sports Physicals in the RHC

WEIGH THE OPPORTUNITY AGAINST THE RISK

During this time of year and on into the summer months, one of the questions being asked is how do we handle "sports physicals"? With all that is dependent upon the sports physical, RHCs need to consider doing the annual physical at this time.

Most insurance companies pay for an annual physical as well as State Medicaid pays for the annual physical if all the components of a physical are completed. Many times this is the only time these kids come to the clinic for services and the Clinic should address many other concerns with the kids and use this time as a "teaching moment" for these kids.   read more  

Is Your RHC Running on Auto Pilot?

We work hard to obtain our initial RHC certification. Our policies and procedures are

perfectly organized in a binder. You could eat off our floor. Our patient forms-

registration forms, financial policy disclosure, privacy & security notice, HIPAA

disclosures--are newly created and crisply printed. Our HR and credentialing files

are immaculate. Our MSDS sheets are in a new red binder above the eye wash station clothed in sheet protectors arranged in alphabetic order. (Insert here any other things that we totally obsessed about until nary a surveyor one could find a deficiency.)

Then, a year or two or five or more goes by. It's is easy to let things fall by the wayside, right?    read more  

Top 10 ICD-10-CM Documentation Deficiencies

1)    Does your EHR allow copying/pasting of medical record information from previous visits? This is the problem we see the most. It results in documentation that does not convey medical necessity for the frequency and intensity of services being claimed, and it creates inconsistencies within the note-especially with diagnoses. Typically, the history and exam components are pasted from a previous note. When other issues are addressed in the current visit, those pasted sections do not support the new diagnosis.

2)    Is the diagnosis or "assessment" simply generated from the provider's ICD code "smart list" of most common diagnoses? If so, you probably have ICD codes "coming out of the blue" or that are nonspecific-taboo in the ICD-10 world. We find that "assessments" that simply list the diagnosis (based on the ICD code description) don't sufficiently tell the story of how the provider arrived at the diagnosis nor does it provide information such as a "differential" diagnosis, which can support the reason for tests.

read more