Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on June 15th, 2011
If you think the pace of all the new rules and regulations is a little too much like a runaway train, you are not alone!
EHR, HIPAA 5010, ICD-10, OIG Compliance, Medicare PRQI, etc, etc
In fact, 39 different healthcare associations have told the Feds to just slow down and quit interfering with our businesses by giving us new hoops to jump through.
Unfortunately, some of us won’t even know what hit us when these new rules go into effect. Some pack fines, others will cripple your cash flow. Still others we should delegate or dump altogether.
While I don’t have the space in this blog to go over every potential rule/regulation affecting chiropractors, here’s the Executive Summary of the ones to pay the most attention to: Read More
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on February 18th, 2011
By request, we have taken our popular seminar and brought it into your home/office via WEBINAR! Read More
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on February 10th, 2011
For those of you who did NOT attend my recent seminars in the Northwest, here are a few items you missed!
For those of you who attended, as promised, here are the specific references and places to go for the information that was not included in your notepacket.
Tom
P.S. If you did NOT attend my recent seminar, be sure to read the bottom of this post for a Special Offer!!
P.S.S. Seminar attendees — I used this picture above to stimulate your memory to…stop giving it all away! 
Read More
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on November 16th, 2010
For those of you who are wondering why I am devoting three blog posts to the Chiropractic Comparative Billing Report, it is this: even if you did not receive a CBR, there is a wealth of opportunity and danger in the data derived from the CBR. Put simply, Medicare has sent the CBR as warning signal (for some of you) that what you are communicating to Medicare (and other payers) may not comply with guidelines and meet the requirements you need to get paid.
While none of your results from the tables or graphs from the CBR should be viewed as a problem in and of itself, there are a few “dangerous” conclusions that you definitely do not want drawn from your practice patterns – whether or not you received a CBR. Read More
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on November 12th, 2010
In Part One of this post, we discussed how to interpret some of the data from the Chiropractic Comparative Billing Report issued recently by Medicare to 5000 DC’s around the USA as well as made some proactive suggestions for improvement.
In this installment, we will discuss the data from the remainder of the Comparative Billing Report (Figure 2 and 3) as well as how to draw some conclusions from the CBR data about your practice. Read More
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on November 2nd, 2010
This past week or so, 5000 chiropractors nationwide received a “present” in the mail in the form of a Chiropractic Comparative Billing Report (CBR). Even though I had previously reported that this would happen (see my previous post “Medicare Releases Chiropractic’s Comparative Billing Report Pilot”), my email inbox now knows what it must feel like to be a postal carrier during the holiday season.
Although, the CBR is not punitive or an audit per se, the report has certainly stirred up strong feelings in our profession and got a whole lot of people suddenly worried about their billing practices and level of audit risk.
At this point, it is not humanly possible for me to respond to all the emails that I have received on the CBR from the profession at large.
However, I will offer the following blog post to address many of the common concerns and questions I have received from chiropractors wondering what to do about their CBR. Read More
Written by Tom Necela on August 17th, 2010
Every Medicare carrier in the country has been assaulting my inbox recently with “ALERT” emails designed to make chiropractors aware of studies being conducted by the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) program. I am not sure if we are at the equivalent of Code Orange or Code Red at this point, but the profession is definitely on Medicare’s “elevated risk” alert system in some fashion. So, in case you haven’t heard, may this post serve to Paul Revere the chiropractic community to be on guard — Medicare is coming, Medicare is coming! Read More
Comments Off
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on August 3rd, 2010
When faced with decisions on major life purchases – house, car, building purchase, even expensive remodels or repairs – most of us responsible adult chiropractors tend to do some comparison shopping. We may go out and get three or four quotes, make a list of the pros and cons and then pick the best choice, right? Read More
Comments Off
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on July 27th, 2010
The recent release (July 16, 2010) of the “Final Rule” regarding Meaningful Use criteria and EHR (Electronic Health Records) Financial Incentives has certainly prompted lots of questions from many chiropractors about how to obtain stimulus dollars for their EHR / EMR systems and what they need to do to qualify.
Below is a summary of some key points regarding EHR eligibility for those of you who don’t care to read the original documents or fact sheets on Meaningful Use and EHR Financial Incentives in their entirety: Read More
Comments Off
Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on July 20th, 2010
I’m on the road for the next couple weeks traveling for a number of on-site consultations with clients so this blog post will be a summary of random thoughts on the most common questions that repeatedly brought to my e-mail inbox. Read More
Comments Off
