June 26, 2020 | By Holly Cassano, CPC, CRC As we move through the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us in health care are finding that many opinions and much guidance exists on the topic of telehealth/telemedicine, from many various sources. At the beginning of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the rules literally seemed to change…
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July 3, 2020 | By Stephanie Allard, CPC, CEMA, RHIT As we move towards implementing the 2021 E/M changes, we need to evaluate areas of bad habits within E/M encounter documentation. I have noticed in my current reviews that many providers are in the habit of documenting the same exact amount of…
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July 10, 2020 | By Paul Spencer, CPC, COC Regular readers of this unique space in the auditing universe have more than likely begun to prepare for 2021 outpatient E/M changes. These planned adaptations have focused mainly on documentation regarding medical decision making, as well as the total time element that is fundamental…
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July 23, 2020 | By Sean Weiss, CHC, CEMA, CMCO, CPMA, CPC-P, CMPE, CPC As you all know the Public Health Emergency (PHE) is due to expire on Saturday the 25th of July unless the Secretary of HHS issues a declaration extending the PHE under what is referred to as the Public Health Services…
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July 24, 2020 | By Sean Weiss, CHC, CEMA, CMCO, CPMA, CPC-P, CMPE, CPC Here we are, nearly at the end of July 2020 and we are neck deep in the process of trying to determine the true impact of the 2021 Evaluation and Management (E&M) Services changes. Here’s the deal from my perspective:…
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July 31, 2020 | By Brenda Edwards, CPC, CDEO, CPB, CPC-I, CEMC, CRC, CMRS, CMCS The workplace is a diverse collection of individual people who are all working towards one goal – making the company successful. Personalities can make this challenging; generational differences brought into the equation can make this even more difficult. When…
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August 7, 2020 | By By Rachel Rose, JD, MBA The Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, Pub. L. 104-191 (Aug. 1996) (“HIPAA”) is often times misapplied. Take the COVID-19 pandemic for example. Despite the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) reiterating the exceptions present…
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August 15, 2020 | By Shannon DeConda, CPC, CPC-1, CPMA, CEMC, CMSCS As we migrate to the new AMA CPT Guidelines for Outpatient Office E&M visits, we mourn the loss of what has been our cozy wearing of the 1995 & 1997 Documentation Guidelines. Out of sentimental respect for the Documentation Guidelines for E&M…
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August 21, 2020 | By Jesse Overbay, JD On March 13, 2020, the President of the United States issued an emergency declaration under the Stafford Act to declare a national health emergency, setting in motion a chain of events for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and our entire healthcare system that…
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August 28, 2020 | By David Glaser, JD For the compliance-oriented, there is something rewarding about developing policies. It feels like an accomplishment, demonstrable proof of a desire to do the right thing. But speaking as a lawyer, I am convinced that most policies hurt, rather than help, the organization that adopts them. There…
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