November 16, 2009 In the debate over health care reform, no issue has produced more fury and sound bites than the question of whether to include a government-run insurance plan.

November 9, 2009 As expected, Medicare physician payments are set to drop by one-fifth beginning on January 1, 2010. More precisely, the "Final Rule" on the Physician Fee Schedule released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on October 30th calculates the reduction at 21.2 percent. The good news is...

November 2, 2009  The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Work Plan for fiscal year 2010 contains one item of specific interest to anesthesiologists and pain physicians who perform transforaminal epidural injections.

October 26, 2009 Anesthesia practices that successfully participated in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) in 2008 have begun receiving notices of payment from Medicare. Some practice administrators are wondering...

October 12, 2009 While Congress looks at surtaxes on high-income individuals and at taxes on “Cadillac” health plans as a means to help pay for healthcare coverage for the uninsured and underinsured, a number of States have already implemented or considered “provider taxes.

October 5, 2009 ABC is very proud to be the sole sponsor of ASA’s Celebration of Advocacy, a major inaugural event that will take place on Saturday, October 17, 2009 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 pm at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

September 28, 2009 On August 25, 2009, Covenant Medical Center (“Covenant”) in Waterloo, Iowa agreed to pay the United States $4.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act.

September 21, 2009 If you have not yet discovered the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) feature of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid website (www.cms.hhs.gov), you are overlooking an increasingly valuable tool.

September 14, 2009 This week we would like to elaborate on the content and importance of the articles and policies published by the Part B (physician services) Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs), formerly known as your local Medicare carriers.

September 8, 2009 The Stimulus Package adopted in Washington last spring, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, included legislation known as the HITECH Act...

August 31, 2009 Today is the deadline to file “comment” letters with CMS regarding the proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for the calendar year 2010.

August 24, 2009 You wonder whether your patient’s insurance will cover monitored anesthesia care (MAC) for an upper GI endoscopy, or for a pain medicine procedure. For that matter, how many pain injections will the payer cover?

August 17, 2009 As Congress finally left Washington, D.C. for the August recess, it was clear that the cost of universal coverage was becoming the dominant challenge in healthcare reform...

August 10, 2009 ABC and other consultants are hoping that by educating you on avoiding and surviving a “RAC attack,” the arrival of the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractors will provide as little drama as did your software when 1999 rolled over.

August 3, 2009 A number of pain medicine practices have recently found themselves targeted for audits by Medicare contractors. Audit letters from contractors including NGS and WPS have focused on medical necessity issues...

July 27, 2009 Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, CMS has not provided specific instruction on exactly how this documentation must be accomplished.

July 20, 2009 Right now the healthcare reform (HCR) comet is moving so fast that the best use of these Monday Alerts is to keep you abreast of major developments affecting anesthesia practice.

July 13, 2009 You may have started receiving unexpected denials from Medicare for epidural injections and nerve blocks performed together with a number of invasive monitoring line insertions and injection/aspiration procedures. THESE DENIALS MAY BE WRONG...

July 6, 2009 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published the “proposed rule” for the 2010 Physician Fee Schedule on Wednesday July 1st.

June 29, 2009 The numbers of anesthesiologists reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), which was created by the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (HCQIA), continue to be very low.