In 2015, Congress passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, known as MACRA. Since then, regulators have been working on releasing guidelines and programs governing MACRA, and many of these impact anesthesiologists. Parts of the proposed rule (it hasn’t gone into effect yet) were announced on April 27 and discussed on this blog previously, […]
Choosing anesthesia billing companies to handle coding, billing, provider credentialing, and revenue cycle management for your practice is a wise choice because you can lower costs, increase efficiency, improve patient service, reduce claim denial rates, boost revenue, reduce overhead, and avoid penalties from not complying with regulations. With all the different providers out there, selecting […]
The Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) is a quality reporting system created by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services designed to properly assess the quality of care that is provided to patients. Providers can use PQRS to quantify how often they are meeting a certain quality metric, and can modify their care based on […]
If you are an anesthesia provider in the state of Alabama, there are certain guidelines you need to be aware of in order to abide by all policies and regulations and ensure you are properly billing and collecting your claims. Here are a few anesthesia billing guidelines your practice should follow. Claim Filing Effective for […]
Anesthesia medical billing can be complex – even daunting – at times. Practitioners are frequently faced with the challenge of not only billing and coding effectively, but also ensuring they comply with all relevant regulations and standards from several different payors. To get the most from your billing system, here are five tips you can […]
The “Veterans Health Care Staffing Improvement Act”, S. 2279, is a piece of legislation that could have extensive repercussions for veteran health care, according to the nation’s largest anesthesiology trade group. The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) announced this month that they have exercised caution about passing S. 2279 because of one provision the Society […]
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama just released its latest adjustments to anesthesia rates for anesthesia billing. Specifically, the insurer increased rates for two ASA codes: 00740 and 00810. The new rates are as follows: 00740 = $285 00810 = $315 Additionally, per communications with BCBSAL, the MAC anesthesia policy #470 and endoscopy anesthesia policy […]
If you could increase revenue for your anesthesiology practice, would you? And how would you do it? Anesthesiology practices across the country have all dealt with the issue of increasing funds in an increasingly-competitive market – primarily by keeping more of the revenue they already generate. By cutting costs and reducing wasteful practices, an anesthesiology […]
Anesthesia billing differs from most other physician billing, in which there is generally a fee-for-service-based payment. Instead of being on a fee-for-service schedule, anesthesia providers are paid according to a different system consisting of base units, time units, and modifiers. The more-complex nature of anesthesia billing means there is more potential for error, which can […]
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama has released updated changes for Monitored Anesthesia Care (MAC) reimbursements released to GI cases. The new effective date is December 28th 2015. As BCBS has released limited information we anticipate many changes before the implementation date. What we know as of today, BCBS will reduce reimbursement to the GI […]
