Exclusive: ACR Convergence 2024| Focus Rheums

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Practice Support

Subcategories:Billing/CodingEMRsFacilityInsuranceQuality Assurance/ImprovementTechnologyWorkforce

Ethics Forum: The Ethics of Accepting Gifts

Michele Meltzer, MD, MBE, C. Ronald MacKenzie, MD, and Elizabeth A. Kitsis, MD, MBE  |  

The holiday season is here and I certainly enjoy receiving gifts as much as anyone. We have been either educated about declining—or forbidden to receive—gifts from pharmaceutical companies, but these are not the only source of gifts. A few years ago, I discovered a private physical therapist was located only a few blocks from my office.

Dressing Down in Scrubs

Ronan Kavanagh, MD  |  

Why rheumatologists should consider making this the uniform of choice

Skilled Nursing Facility Patients—Consolidated Billing

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When treating a patient that lives in a skilled nursing facility (SNF), it is important to understand the coding and billing guidelines of consolidated billing. That is because certain services must be consolidated and submitted by the SNF using its Medicare provider number, and not submitted by you, the physician, unless they are one of the excluded services, which will be further discussed below.

Practice Page: Protecting Your Practice through Compliance

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Compliance programs are an effort by the government to maintain integrity in the healthcare system. These programs target activities causing improper payment to determine their root cause: Was it a mistake or error, was it inefficiency or waste of resources, is the provider bending the rules or abusing the system, or was it intentional deception or fraud? There are also laws dictating the compliance culture within practices and institutions; for example, red-flag rules, antikickback statute, and stark law, to name a few.