Last week’s issue of Medical Economics featured an “ask the expert” article about changing codes for tobacco cessation counseling. The practice that submitted the question had found that claims submitted under two particular codes had started to be denied. The coding expert confirmed that these codes had changed at the beginning of this year.
 
If this sounds like a familiar scenario, you may be interested to know that coding tools are available with NueMD that automatically keep the CPT®, ICD-9 and HCPCS codes contained in your coding list up to date. This means no more rejected claims when the codes change – and no delay in reimbursement.

An article in today’s Medical Economics provides some useful tips to help improve the flow of patients through your office, and in the process increase their satisfaction and your productivity. Among them is the advice to use the time-stamp feature in your EMR or practice management software to chart patient flow and see exactly where the bottlenecks are occurring. Using NueMD’s medical scheduler, for example, each patient can be tracked and time-stamped with arrival, check-in, visit and departure times. Once this data is analyzed (more detailed suggestions for doing this are contained within the Medical Economics article), it can provide invaluable fodder for benchmarking and setting goals for your practice. Other productivity-enhancing tips in the article include how to deal with phone calls effectively and how to end visits from that patient who would like to chat all day!

The results of analysis published yesterday show that those who use smoking cessation aids are up to 2.4 times more likely to successfully quit smoking than those that go “cold turkey” and rely on willpower alone to quit. Researchers also found that cessation aids were underused due to a lack of widespread access.

This information, which was compiled from a total of 69 different studies on smoking cessation, is particularly relevant to those colleges and universities trying to reduce cigarette smoking by students to below 10.5 percent, in line with the Healthy Campus 2010 goals. Health centers may choose to focus additional resources on promoting and making readily available such cessation aids as nicotine nasal sprays, nicotine patches and varenicline and bupropion tablets to maximize students’ chances of quitting. Additionally, many campuses are banning smoking on campus in an attempt to change students’ perceptions of how common smoking is amongst their peers, although to what extent this contributes to a lower smoking rate among students is a topic of some debate.

Health centers wishing to perform their own clinical studies on the effectiveness of smoking cessation aids for student smokers may find Nuesoft Xpress’ practice management system of use. The application includes a clinical studies tool that allows tracking, reports and analysis of participating students.

Last month, the U.S. Senate did not pass House Resolution 6331, which would prevent scheduled 10.6 percent reductions in Medicare payments. Although there is a good chance that the bill, with some potential modifications, will be put in front of Congress again in the next couple of weeks, physicians are currently trying to find the best way to deal with this significant drop in reimbursement. For some, this means closing their doors temporarily; for others, it means refusing to accept patients with Medicare plans for all but emergency cases. The problem is compounded for those that do not have an efficient medical practice management and billing system, because their reimbursement cycles are even longer. Medicare pays paper claims no sooner than 29 days after receipt, but electronic claims as little as 14 days after receipt. Additionally, medical billing software such as NueMD allows users to file claims cleanly the first time, meaning rejection rates from Medicare and other payers drop to between zero and three percent. Having that extra money coming in promptly might prove vital for practices that would be impacted by the reduced Medicare reimbursement rates.

Despite the continued wrangling over whether utilizing telehealth methods affects standards of care, there is currently a convergence of perfect conditions for the rise of remote health care options. Technological capabilities are rapidly increasing while the cost of high-tech solutions is decreasing, which also affects the adoption rate of electronic medical records and practice management software by providers. The increasing use of application service providers (ASPs) in this field means that physicians can securely access patients’ records from anywhere in the world, and video conferencing options provide a human touch to a remote physician - patient encounter. Added to technological factors, the U.S. is facing a shortage of nurses, leaving some rural areas particularly understaffed; plus high gas prices are prompting many to seek remote alternatives for services or tasks they would usually conduct face to face.

Telehealth solutions are not just limited to linking patients to providers. Some of the most valuable ways to utilize this technology is to provide a link between medics; for example, between hospitals and consulting surgeons who are not on-site, or paramedics and ER doctors. An indication of how mainstream remote health care services are becoming is Aetna and Cigna’s recent decision to offer reimbursement for teleconsults. It seems that geography or an inability to travel may soon no longer be a barrier to receiving the same range of health care services as everyone else.