December 24th 2024
The costs and burden of Maintenance of Certification drives physicians out of medicine
November 21st 2024
November 12th 2024
The integral role of primary care in end-of-life care
June 8th 2016When it comes to end-of-life issues across all ages, the primary care physician(s) who know the family best should have an integral role in the formal bedside decision-making process. Furthermore, primary care physicians should be compensated for the time it takes at the bedside to assist in directing the best care for these patients.
Depression management lags, but PCPs may hold the key
May 25th 2016Primary care physicians commonly screen their patients for depression, but still underuse established and effective care management practices compared to other chronic illnesses like diabetes, asthma, and congestive heart failure, according to a recent study published in Health Affairs.
How physicians can get paid for home visits
May 25th 2016DOWLING Contributing authorGETTING PAID FOR HOME VISITSRenee Dowling is a billing andcoding consultant with VEIConsulting in Indianapolis, Indiana.Send your coding questions to:medec@advanstar.com.I am in private practice and recently did a home visit, one-hour evaluation for the first time. What is the code for the initial home visit and then subsequent visits?
How physicians can prepare now before CMS removes the ICD-10 safety net
May 25th 2016On October 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ grace period for denials of claims under ICD-10 will end. Physicians will do well to recognize that while the updated and expanded standards for coding specificity offer a new level of accuracy, they may also affect the bottom line.
Administrative costs are killing U.S. healthcare
May 21st 2016The United States faces an unenviable paradox: the healthcare sector is an important source of job growth and economic output, but healthcare costs-now comprising nearly one fifth of economic output-are dramatically higher than those in other developed nations, and continue to rise.
Tough questions to ask vendors about HIPAA compliance
May 18th 2016The cloud revolution has many wonderful advantages such as lower costs, faster ROI and more powder in the hands of customers. However, when using cloud services your company data is no longer hosted on your physical IT infrastructure so there are some new legal and technical issues that have to be addressed.
Primary care must be the mental health medical home
May 14th 2016As a primary care physician, my responsibility to my patients goes beyond just caring for their physical well-being. My obligation-professional and ethical-is to treat the whole person and that means attending to their mental health as well.