Telehealth Services: As of 2017, many payers are now legally required to reimburse providers of various specialties for telehealth services. Billing and Coding reimbursement rules for telemedicine can be extremely cumbersome. Follow these compliance tips and the financial impact for your practice can be significant:nCLICK HERE TO SUBMIT A CASE STUDY TO THE SURGERY CODING SERIES!
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Relationships
Most long-term relationships are built on mutual trust and respect. Valuable relationships are not built on mistrust, fear or intimidation. Same holds true for the relationship your practice has with payers, and especially payer representatives. A little sugar can go a long way when you need help resolving claims issues or credentialing problems. Resist the temptation to beat up on the payer reps you encounter over the phone and don’t ever write a nasty, insulting e-mail. These almost always backfire and once the bullet leaves the gun you can’t bring it back.nnBelieve it or not, you need these people and they have long memories. Having done this for almost 30 years, I have found the payer reps, like me, are not perfect but they really do want to help resolve issues not make them worse. Take the long view, create a relationship!nn
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About R. Todd Welter • MS, CPCnFounder and President of Welter Healthcare Partners
nMr. Welter has over 25 years of healthcare industry experience assisting physicians and other providers, hospitals and other facilities with the business side of medicine. Through strategic planning and analysis, Mr. Welter’s main focus is to strategically increase revenues and profitability in this radically changing health care environment. Mr. Welter has a Masters Degree in Organizational Leadership from Regis University in Denver where he has had an appointment as affiliate faculty in the School for Professional Studies for over ten years. In addition, Mr. Welter holds a faculty appointment at the University of Denver’s University College. In the Health Care Leadership program he teaches Macro Economics in Health Care and Innovative Strategies and Change in Health Care to graduate students.
Check out this reminder from CMS about Medicare and the social security number initiative, as well as tips and links to where you can learn more about the announcement.nnAs you know, beginning in April 2018, CMS will start mailing Medicare cards with new Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers (MBIs) to all people with Medicare. The MBI will replace the Social Security Number (SSN)-based Health Insurance Claim Number for transactions like billing, eligibility status, and claim status after a 
It would be better that you know that it is a good idea.nnPutting together a well thought out and honest Proforma can prove the business case of an idea…or disprove it.nnAll revenue has an expense, all expenses should have some attributable revenue. A proforma is a list of both revenue and expenses in incredible detail and granularity. If there is a business case a thorough proforma will prove it. And…as a bonus the proforma calculations can become your budget control document to keep good ideas good.nnWe do medical management proforma’s… we we do them well! Spend a few bucks to insure that you will make a lot of bucks.nn
Welter Healthcare Partners is excited to present our helpful career advancing tips and strategies to sharpen the skills prospective employers look for in a coder!nnSoft Skills: What are they exactly? And why are they so crucial to landing your dream job? Soft skills are used synonymously with interpersonal skills and are always in high demand. These are typically skills that are more social than technical like standard job-related requirements. Soft skills include a broad range of areas – here are just a few examples: communication, executive presence, gravitas, relationship-building, decisiveness, self-motivation, leadership, team work, creativity, and resiliency. Employers desire candidates with strong soft skills as these skills are invaluable to the success of any business and are imperativento fostering a dynamic workplace.
The Republican Health Bill financial analysis will reveal whether or not the bill will miss required targets, and ultimately determine if the House will have to redo the vote.nnHouse Republicans are waiting anxiously for a new financial estimate on their Obamacare repeal proposal that could force them into a do-over on the bill they barely passed early this month.nnSpeaker Paul Ryan says he is uncertain about the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the measure’s budget impact — critical for meeting Senate rules that would let the GOP pass it with a simple majority amid unanimous Democratic opposition.nn”We have every reason to believe we are going to hit our mark,” Ryan of Wisconsin told reporters Tuesday. Still he added, “CBO scores have been unpredictable in cases in the past.”nnFor the health plan to comply with requirements for using a streamlined Senate process called reconciliation, the CBO will have to conclude that it reduces the deficit by at least $2 billion over 10 years. If not, the House will have to redo the bill to meet that standard and vote on it again. And that won’t be easy after the weeks of negotiations and revisions that led to the American Health Care Act’s May 4