Medical Billing Blog with Medical Billing & Coding Info & Articles
Our blog contains news and articles relating to numerous healthcare sectors including revenue cycle management, medical billing, medical coding, ICD, HIPAA, practice management functions and more.
Deadlines: Regulations on HIPAA Compliance for Physicians
The deadline of September 23, 2013 has come and gone on the calendar. It was on this day the federal government enacted changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA. Medical physicians must be compliant with privacy and security and changes will include things like how to properly secure a patient’s health information or what you must tell a patient about their privacy rights. Medical physicians have 6 months to comply, and for many this is a difficult task to stay on so that the deadline is met. Compliance of the act includes the following updates to the regulations. Physicians must conduct a risk analysis …
5 Steps To Ensure Audit-Proof Medical Claims with ICD-10
You know how important submitting accurate medical claims are for the health of your practice. With a solid and detailed coding policy in place, your practice can ensure strong documentation to prove medical necessity for services that your physicians provide, and get paid accurately for those services. Follow these five easy steps to help you establish a policy that will save you from future audit: Establish coding resources in your library Step 1: To design an effective coding policy, start with making sure that you adhere to the ICD-9-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting. Not keeping yourself up-to-date with these standard rules can land you into big trouble. The Official Guidelines …
ICD-10: Know ICD-9 And ICD-10 Differences Beforehand!
ICD-10 deadline is looming. The fear of October 2014 has sent the healthcare industry in a tizzy with many fearing for its accurate compliance. The haphazard preparation of the diagnostic codes is a disaster waiting to happen. Before chalking out the ICD-10 action plan for your practice and to ensure a smooth transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10, it would be wise for you to know the most crucial differences between ICD-9 and ICD-10. Lack of Specifics ICD-9 has been marred by a glaring lack of specification, for instance, the same injuries on opposite limbs comprise the same code. This leads to complexity and gives room for confusion on different levels. …
Windows XP Will Not Be HIPAA Compliant in April 2014
If you are still using Windows XP machines, you need to be getting rid of them soon. As Mike points out over at Hitech Answers, April 8th is when Microsoft ends all security updates, which puts you in direct violation with HIPAA. “Time’s up. On April 8, 2014, Microsoft is ending security updates and patches for Windows XP and Office 2003. Just having a Windows XP computer on your network will be an automatic HIPAA violation, which makes you non-compliant with Meaningful Use and will be a time bomb that could easily cause a reportable and expensive breach of protected patient information. HIPAA fines and loss of Meaningful Use money …
ICD-10 Preparation Steps and Tips for Medical Providers
As a Provider, ICD-10 preparation, and the subsequent upcoming transition can be a bit daunting. The first thing I recommend you do is to assign one individual to be the driving force behind the process and to oversee the details. This could be your coder, office manager, biller or anyone in your staff with the drive to make it as smooth as possible. Next, you should begin to develop your timeline. It’s important for you to have goals in place so that you can achieve your plan. One of the key elements you will need to do in your preparation is to identify the most common codes that your practice …
ICD-10, Be Financially Prepared Before October 2014
As a follow-up to my ICD-10 article yesterday, I thought it was definitely worth mentioning this article by Matt Dallmann over at Physicians Practice. My article focused mainly on the sheer number of codes and how I felt that would affect providers in their daily operations. In his article today, Matt discusses the potential, or actually, the likelihood for a delay in reimbursements as this transition takes place. As quoted below, he mentions that it will likely cause computer glitches, etc., causing delays and a headache for many providers. “There are a number of issues you should look out for, ranging from systemic changes to computer glitches. The expansion of …
A New Year Brings a New Code Set – ICD-10 in 271 Days
It’s the year of ICD-10. In a short 271 days we will be making the change from ICD-9 to ICD-10. There is a ton of great information available on making the transition in October, but in speaking with clients and colleagues, I see an impact that will take providers some time to get used to. A very notable change of ICD-10 that I feel will have the most impact is the sheer number of codes providers will be dealing with on a daily basis. ICD-10 Diagnosis Codes: As we all know, we will be transitioning to ICD-10 in October (as of right now anyway), and this is a huge change …
Happy New Year and Reflection of OMG, LLC in 2013
Happy New Year to all of our colleagues, clients, friends and family. I want to personally wish everyone a year of health, wealth, happiness, and the love of all of those you hold dear. I want to thank everyone for making 2013 a fantastic year at Outsource Management Group, LLC. I could not ask for a better group of staff members that keep everything rolling on a daily basis. Their dedication and hard work are second to none, and never go unnoticed by our clients, myself, or the rest of our management team. Thank you for showing up everyday, giving the dedication we appreciate and the expertise that we need. …
Happy Holidays (The Sequel) from The OMG Elves
I wanted to add some more of our elves to the fun so here is a sequel, hip-hop version with a new set of elves around me. I want to say it again, on behalf of myself and the staff at Outsource Management Group… Happy Holidays to everyone, and we hope you enjoy our fun little elf video to show our appreciation. Thank you again, Melissa Clark – CEO View our first video with the OMG elves
Happy Holidays from The OMG Elves
I want to take a minute to thank everyone that has made 2013 at Outsource Management Group so fabulous, from all our vendors, to our amazing clients, to the incredible staff that make it all happen. I personally can’t say thank you enough, it has been a great year and we look forward to 2014. On behalf of myself and the staff at Outsource Management Group… Happy Holidays to everyone, and we hope you enjoy our fun little elf video to show our appreciation. Thank you again, Melissa Clark – CEO View our second video with additional staff members
