January 17, 2011
Reporting Fluoroscopy Together With Pain Injections—CPT Assistant Issues A Correction Notice

January 10, 2011
Registering for the Medicare EHR Incentive

January 3, 2011
Medicare Anesthesia Conversion Factors, 2010 and 2011

December 27, 2010
Anesthesiologists and Other Physicians Exempt from Complying with the Red Flag Rule

December 20, 2010
Clarifying issues such as quality measurement, patient attribution and payment models in ACOs

December 13, 2010
Congress agreed last week to freeze Medicare physician payments at current levels through December 31, 2011.

December 6, 2010
...a summary of the data will help inform the debates we are inevitably going to be having with family members and friends during the holiday festivities.

November 29, 2010
...the 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System (“PQRS,” the new name for the Physician Quality Reporting System [PQRI], as announced in the Federal Register notice containing the final Fee Schedule rule) does not contain any new anesthesia measures. Next year, anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists who perform the measures will...

November 15, 2010
Last week’s Alert included the single most important item in the finalized CMS regulation (“Final Rule”) on the 2011 Medicare Fee Schedule: the 24.9 percent decrease in the respective conversion factors for anesthesia and for all other services.

November 8, 2010 The final rule on the 2011 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule turns out not to be very different from the proposed rule that was published last July.

November 1, 2010 The elections will at last be over tomorrow, but that does not mean that any member of the anesthesia community should cease his or her efforts to move Congress to avert a catastrophe in physicians’ continued participation in the Medicare program.

October 25, 2010 For the first time in several years, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has issued its annual prospective Work Plan without including any reference to interventional pain procedures.

October 18, 2010 If you haven’t already looked at the October issue of the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Newsletter, you will want to make sure you have a copy.

October 11, 2010 ACO? Yes, another three-letter abbreviation is wending its way into our awareness.Although it sometimes seems as though healthcare will soon have used up all 17,576 (26³) possible three-letter combinations, that is far from the reality.

October 4, 2010 Proposed Rule: Issued On September 23, 2010, Which Sets Forth The Core Elements That Should Be Included In Anesthesiologists’ Compliance Plans

September 27, 2010 Current anesthesia records tell us rather little about the postoperative phase of a patient’s experience, and less about the quality of post-anesthesia care in a hospital generally.

September 20, 2010 One of the many reasons for which Medicare may deny your claims is the form of your electronic or handwritten signature. A number of ABC clients have recently had claims rejected allegedly because of missing information; follow-up by telephone has revealed that the anesthesiologist’s signature did not meet Medicare requirements.

September 13, 2010 It is medical society meeting time again across the country, and many of those meetings are going to include presentations on negotiating. Hospital contracts, payer participation agreements, employment status and changes are among the most common negotiation topics at anesthesiology conferences.

September 7, 2010 Next Year’s Medicare Payments to Anesthesiologists: Not Quite as Dire read the whole story here.

August 30, 2010 On July 13, 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published its in the Federal Register.