Medicare’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) has been on a gradual incline toward requiring full participation by eligible providers. During its transition stage, reporting for the first year (2017) allowed providers the option to report as partial, full, minimum or not at all, with varying degrees of penalties and incentives across all three reporting components:…
Patients Have Different Hospital Outcomes When Regular Doctors See Them
(Reuters Health)—Many outcomes for hospital patients—including how long they stay and their survival odds after they go home—may depend on whether or not they’re cared for by their primary care physician, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers examined data on 560,651 admissions nationwide for patients covered by Medicare, the U.S. health program for the elderly and…
Patient Satisfaction Plummets When Doctors Say ‘No’ to Requests
(Reuters Health)—Patients may become less satisfied with their care when doctors refuse their requests for things, such as prescriptions or lab tests, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers examined data on 1,141 patients with a total of 1,319 doctor visits. Overall, about two-thirds of these visits included at least one patient request for the doctor to…
Rheumatology Guidelines often Based on Weak Evidence
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Most recent clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) are based on expert opinion and lack A-level evidence in support of their recommendations, researchers report. “I’d like to highlight not just for providers but also for patients and policymakers that, even though we in the United States are…
Just You & the Patient: Tips to Stay Focused at Work
Ringing phones, patient emergencies, staff interruptions—rheumatologists work amidst distraction all day. Here are some practical and personal tips on how to stay focused on your patients…
Sen. Lisa Murkowski Addresses Rheumatologists During ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, Tax Reform & More
Greetings, advocates! This month’s Washington update covers how Congress’s tax proposals affect rheumatology, the ACR’s plan to fight Medicare’s adjustments to Part B drug costs in MIPS, the good news of Medicare’s new individualized biosimilar reimbursement, advances in the rheumatology-specific Alternative Payment Model and developments in Congress’s awareness about the perilous pharmacy benefit manager system….
How Non-Physician Providers Can Help Your Practice
New data shows that both private and public rheumatology practices benefit financially by hiring non-physician providers (NPPs). But when should practices hire NPPs?
Lower Medicaid Fees Linked to Scarcer Primary Care Appointments
(Reuters Health)—When the fees paid to healthcare providers by Medicaid go up, appointments with primary care doctors suddenly become more available to Medicaid beneficiaries – and the opposite happens when fees go down, according to a recent U.S. study. Researchers found that, overall, every $10 change up or down in the Medicaid fees paid to…
What You Need to Know about the New Medicare Card Project
Beginning in April 2018, Medicare patients will receive newly designed Medicare identification cards that replace their Social Security numbers (SSNs) with unique, randomly assigned, alphanumeric identification numbers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is making the change to protect patients 65 and older from exposing their SSNs in efforts to “help prevent fraud,…
Rheumatology Coding Corner Question: Evaluation for Possible Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
History A 25-year-old female patient is seen in the office after her primary care physician requested a consultation for a possible diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The patient presents today with muscle pain in both legs, she rates the pain at an 8 on a scale of 10. She states she experiences throbbing, usually…
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- …
- 172
- Next Page »