With auditors examining our every move, many chiropractors are growing increasingly concerned about the state of their documentation. Here’s the really bad news: as a Certified Professional Auditor and Professional Coder myself, I have reviewed countless chiropractic records and many DCs have good reason to worry.
Here’s the good news: this article will teach you how to avoid surprisingly common and easily overlooked mistakes in your documentation that generally spell big trouble during an audit. Read More
Today’s installment is Part 3 of the series, click if you missed Part 1 or Part 2 (both quick reads)
3. Be On the Lookout - Audit Targets for 2013.
The Office of Inspector General published its work plan for 2013 (click to read entire document), which includes the items its auditors intends to focus their attention. While the OIG dictates the roadmap for Medicare audits, most other payers will follow suit and scrutinize the same areas that were highlighted on Medicare’s list. Below is ones that chiropractors need to specifically be aware of: Read More
In Part One of this article “How to Survive a Chiropractic Audit” we focused on what to do if and when you get notification that your chiropractic practice is being audited. My primary focus in that article was to prevent you from having a heart attack, from fleeing to a fortress in Slovenia, from unnecessarily declaring bankruptcy or from throwing in the towel and ending it all. Unfortunately, in my work helping chiropractors with their audits, I’ve seen all of the above
(Ok, maybe not fleeing to Slovenia, but if you’ve got to leave the country, it’s a nice place to be, especially around Lake Bled in the summertime…But I digress.)
In Part Two, we are going to focus on being a little more proactive than having your passport ready or your fingers crossed. Let’s focus on preventing the audit.Read More
Are your insurance payers, Medicare or even Personal Injury/Motor Vehicle carriers asking you for refunds?
Over the last several years, you’ve probably noticed an increase in the number of payers auditing chiropractic services. This trend seems to be increasing as is the aggressiveness of the audit. Translation – payers are asking for more money back, more frequently. At times, it may appear that these payers are clearly targeting chiropractors and I will admit that I did exponentially fewer Chiropractic Audit Consults a few years ago than recently. While, in some cases, that may be true, the number of audits has increased for all physicians – regardless of specialty.
If that dreaded letter or visit happens to make its way to your office, here are a few questions you will (or should) be asking: Read More
Medicare has been particularly active lately in attempting to educate chiropractors about errors that we have been making in respect to billing Medicare for chiropractic services. Over the past month or so, several Medicare carriers (Noridian, Palmetto, NGS, etc) have held training sessions, webinars and teleseminars dedicated to reviewing “the rules” for proper chiropractic billing, coding and documentation in Medicare. All told – these carriers represent approximately 50% of US Chiropractors – so it may be worth paying attention to what they are saying.
Below are quotes from the auditors conducting CERT reviews for these carriers as to why services were denied, billing was incorrect or documentation was considered substandard. Read More
We’ve all heard what a powerful marketing tool the internet can be for our chiropractic practices. I agree that chiropractors should be using the internet as one of their chiropractic marketing tools. Whether or not most chiropractors are doing so effectively is another discussion for another time.
For today, I’d like to talk about the dangers of the internet and how to protecting yourself from trouble. Apart from obvious things such as identity theft, credit card fraud and phising scams, there are virtual bombs awaiting you on the internet that you may not have considered but would do well to avoid. Here are a few: Read More
On September 26, 2011 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will release a national provider Comparative Billing Report (CBR) aimed at the chiropractic profession…again.
No, you are not vicariously having some sort of “senior moment” or bad flashback due to your younger and wilder days. Yes, Medicare did in fact conduct a chiropractic CBR last year (2010). This round is a similar study equivalent to the one distributed last fall except this current study will focus on 2010 data. Read More
Some of you may get tired of hearing how dangerous errors in your chiropractic billing, coding or documentation practices may be. I certainly have sat through more than my fair share of seminars where it appeared that the main motive of the speaker was to scare you straight. Furthermore, from the data extracted from most chiropractic reviews done by Medicare and other payers, we have ample evidence that we should be more than a bit worried.
Since I am a bottom line fanatic, let’s look at this from another angle: what could chiropractic billing, coding or documentation errors cost you? Obviously, the flip side of this question is, if you do it right, how can sound strategies in this regard help you improve your business? Read More
