·  Reserve Your Space in the Upcoming October Courses

·  Florida Medicaid Clients Dropped in Computer Failure

·  UK News: NHS Refuses to Pay for Painkilling Injections

·  Health Reform Bill Awaiting House Return

·  Voluntary Refunds Don't Protect Against RACs

·  RAC Audits Begin in South Carolina

·  Healthcare Employment Continued to Grow in July

·  Physicians Wanted

Reserve Your Space in the Upcoming October Courses

On October 9-11, ASIPP is offering two courses to enable you advance your skills in interventional pain management or coding, compliance & practice management. The courses will be held in Memphis, TN at the historic Peabody hotel.

The Comprehensive Review Course and Cadaver Workshop in Interventional Pain Techniques will provide an opportunity for hands-on instruction in basic, intermediate or ABIPP Part II examination preparation. Register

The Practica l Documentation, Billing, Coding, and Compliance for Interventional Pain Practices course will offer extensive and detailed sessions on coding for interventional pain management. This is a opportunity for you and your staff to learn and also get answers for your troubling coding questions. Registe r

Course details will be made available soon but registration is open. We encourage you to register soon to reserve your spot.

Brochure

Meetings

Florida Medicaid Clients Dropped in Computer Failure

Roughly 1 million of Florida's 2.6 million Medicaid patients were mistakenly deleted from eligibility rolls due to a computer glitch. A spokeswoman for the state Agency for Health Care Administration said that the problem has been fixed, although a reason for the computer failure has yet to be determined (Miami Herald, August 5, 2009).

The Miami Herald

UK News: NHS Refuses to Pay for Painkilling Injections

Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned (Donnelly, Telegraph, August 2, 2009).

The Government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known. Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy

More on the subject...British Pain Society president ousted after row over NICE guidelines

Telegraph.co.uk

Health Reform Bill Awaiting House Return

The House left for its summer break without voting on a health system reform bill. But Democratic leaders did move the legislation past a crucial final committee after making numerous revisions to quell an uprising among more conservative members of the party (Glendinning, American Medical News, August 10, 2009).

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 31 voted 31-28 to pass America's Affordable Health Choices Act, clearing the legislation for consideration by the full House after the August break. Versions of the bill had passed two other committees soon after it was unveiled. But Democratic conservatives' concerns raised in the final committee over long-term spending and other issues ensured that the House would miss its deadline and threatened the survival of the reform package itself.

amednews.com

Voluntary Refunds Don't Protect Against RACs

For many providers, self-auditing has become an important RAC preparation tool. Certainly, internal audit results can show where additional education is necessary to ensure appropriate coding, billing, and documentation practices. And this will result in fewer RAC denials, because if practices are correct, the RACs will find fewer errors to deny (Kraynak, HealthLeaders Media, July 30, 2009).

But many providers also assume that reporting errors (and refunding identified overpayments) discovered while self-auditing will protect those claims from RAC review - CMS says "no."

HealthLeaders Media

RAC Audits Begin in South Carolina

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Tuesday it will begin automatic audits of providers in South Carolina for certain Medicare billing codes. This is just the beginning of nationwide audits under Medicare's Recvovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program (Healthcare Finance News, August 6, 2009).

The audit contractors, Connolly Consulting, will first target physicians and hospitals in South Carolina, then include other states and territories in its designated region, which consists of Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Other areas of the country will fall under the jurisdiction of three other contracted auditors.

Healthcare Finance News

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Healthcare Employment Continued to Grow in July

Employment in the U.S. healthcare sector increased by 20,000 jobs in July, although the national unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent, according to recent data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (Healthcare Finance, August 6, 2009)

Healthcare Finance