On March 3, 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced its intention to stop the 10-day hold on physicians' Medicare claims in light of recent legislative action to extend current Medicare payment rates through March 31, 2010. President Obama signed into law the Temporary Extension Act of 2010 on March 2, 2010, which extends through March 31, 2010, the zero percent update to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule that was in effect for claims with dates of service January 1, 2010, through February 28, 2010. Consequently, effective immediately, claims with dates of service March 1 and later which were being held by Medicare contractors will be released for processing and payment. Statutory payment floors still apply and, therefore, clean electronic claims cannot be paid before 14 calendar days after the date they are received by Medicare contractors (29 calendar days for clean paper claims). |
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3.2.2010 WASHINGTON - The Senate voted 78-19 to pass H.R. 4691, the "Temporary Extension Act of 2010," which included provisions to extend 2009 Medicare physician payment rates through the end of the month. As a result, the 21% payment cut that took effect on March 1 has been postponed until April 1. More information to come as this story develops. |
2.18.2010 Physicians have until March 17 to change their Medicare participation or nonparticipation status for this year, meaning that doctors who have not already changed their status still can do so and those who made a change can still retract it. Because the decision would be retroactive, those who switch from "nonparticipation" to "participation" would have to refund any balance billing collected from their patients between Jan. 1 and their new decision date. To help ensure that physicians are making informed decisions about their contractual relationships with the Medicare program, the AMA has developed a document that explains the current situation with respect to Medicare payment updates for 2010 and the various participation options that are available to physicians. The purpose of the document is to ensure that physicians are fully aware of the Medicare participation options they have, and the AMA does not advise or recommend any one of the three options described there. Visit http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/399/med-par-options.pdf to view the document. |
2.10.2010 Caroline Abreu will never take her health for granted. The Natchitoches resident has been receiving medication since 2006 from the Cenla Medication Access Program, a Rapides Foundation initiative. Starting with covering the nine Central Louisiana parishes served by the Rapides Foundation, based in Alexandria, the program expanded by 30 parishes in 2008 after forming a partnership with the Louisiana Bureau of Primary Care and Rural Health. In November, CMAP started covering the entire state. Read the entire article by Jeff Matthews with The Town Talk (Alexandria). |
3.1.2010 The devastation in Haiti is the worst natural catastrophe since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Thailand Tsunami in 2004, with early reports out of Haiti placing the possible death toll in the hundreds of thousands. With a multitude of options for providing financial assistance or volunteering to assist with the medical relief efforts, the LSMS is posting resources and information to guide physicians and health care providers interested in participating in relief efforts. Click here for details!
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2.03.2010 Call for Comment: Continuing Medical Education
The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) has received some feedback from some providers and other stakeholders that pure knowledge-based CME activities are vital to physicians' continuing education and professional development, and that the ACCME should revisit this issue and consider rewording the Criteria. The ACCME is asking the CME community: Should the word knowledge be added into Criteria 1, 3 and 11? The ACCME posted a Call for Comment on its website regarding a possible change in the wording of its Updated Criteria for CME. Please visit their website to post your comment by March 8, 2010.
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