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Welcome to the medical billing blog containing news and articles relating to medical billing, medical coding ICD-10, HIPAA and all practice management functions.
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EHR Meaningful Use and Stage 2 Guidelines
January has brought upon the EHR (electronic health records) Stage 2 incentive programs start for physician and medical practices. However, there is a great deal of concern that those doctors who can meet Stage 1 requirements will not be able to meet the Stage 2, because their EHRs are not up to standard and neither are the vendors that they deal with. There are 2200 products and almost 1400 EHR certifications for Stage 1, but only 75 products and 21 EHR certifications for stage 2. Around 90 percent of the vendors are expected to not be ready for stage 2. Stage 2 is the second step of meaningful use for …
Is ICD-10 Going to Provoke a Level of Healthcare Insanity?
Is ICD-10 going to provoke a level of healthcare insanity? The opinions of a coder. ICD-10 or International Classification of Diseases is designed to create a system where there is compatibility throughout the nation relating to data collection, processing and classification of disease, as well as presenting mortality statistics. The ICD-9 has been revised and as a result, we now have the ICD-10, a whopping three volumes of alphanumeric categories. Some chapters have been changed and rearranged and some conditions have been regrouped from ICD-9. In fact, there is almost double the number of categories from ICD-9 to ICD-10. ICD-10 opponents say that ICD-10 has gone too far, that it …
ICD-10 for Substance Abuse & Mental Health Providers
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has published a new fact sheet designed to help mental health and substance abuse service providers make the transition to the new International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition (ICD-10) code sets. ICD-10 will affect all diagnosis and inpatient procedure coding for everyone involved in mental health and substance abuse healthcare under HIPAA. However the change to ICD-10 does not affect CPT coding for outpatient procedures. All services provided for either substance use or mental disorders are subject to HIPAA standards; therefore, all mental health and substance abuse providers must shift to ICD-10 once it becomes effective on October 1st. SAMHSA’s new …
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 …
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 …
