Don’t miss our Wine & Cheese Reception – and a chance to win a free trip! DecisionHealth
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7:30 a.m.-8:30 a.m. Registration & Continental Breakfast GENERAL SESSION 8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Keynote: How To Stay Energized in a Changing World
Changes in health care and increasing work demands can multiply your stress. Our keynote speaker, Greg Risberg, MSW, CSP, mixes humor with a message to give you useful ideas on how to reduce stress and relax under pressure. Find ways to communicate more effectively, use humor as a stress-reliever, change negative “self-talk” and boost your self-care strategies. Greg guarantees you will discover exciting ways to achieve more balance in your life. 9:30 a.m.-9:50 a.m. Refreshment Break BREAK-OUTS: CODING , BILLING & COMPLIANCE 9:50 a.m.-10:50 a.m. Meet the Medical Necessity Challenge
You’ve lots of pressure on your time and the last thing you want to deal with is chasing after a claim denied due to medical necessity. So let’s stop those denials in their tracks! Let Jo Ann Steigerwald, RHIT, ACS-GI, ACS-OH, Medical Business Specialists, Baraboo, Wis., coder extraordinaire, help shore up your medical necessity through strong ICD-9-CM diagnosis coding and showing you how that relates to CPT-4 procedure coding. Although not every procedure code is covered by a medical necessity policy, for many CPT-4 codes, there is a corresponding list of ICD-9 codes. Jo Ann will cover the key points and actions to take so you can do it right the first time. 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Coding and Payment Policy for Minor Surgical and Endoscopy Procedures
If you don’t understand the multiple surgery or endosocopy rules, you may run afoul of coding and potentially miss entitled revenue for your practice. Say you do bronchoscopy with alvelolar lavage, biopsy, and two transbronchial biopsies of separate lobes. If you don’t know the rules, you might miss out on billing the lavage (31624), and three other biopsy codes (31625, 31628 and 31632). Let long time coding pro Leslie Witkin, Physician’s First, Orlando, Fla., show you how to apply the multiple surgery or endoscopy rules, and when they apply. You’ll also get help measuring lesions, and following coding rules on benign vs. malignant and simple, intermediate or complex repairs. Plus find out why visits on the same day as minor surgical procedures aren’t being paid, and what you can do about it. BONUS: You get exact citations from CMS and CPT so you can go back and show your payers why they must pay up. 12:00 p.m.-1:15 p.m. Lunch – Network with your Peers! 1:15 p.m.-2:15 p.m. Be a Chart Detective: Hone your critical thinking skills  Barb Pierce,
CCS-P, ACS-EM, PMMProfessional Management Midwest Omaha, Neb. Attend this interactive session where you will go on a coding investigation. Look for clues leading to capture of correct culprits (codes). The speaker walks you through a series of thought processes, a real-life who-done-it, why, and the resolution — just as you do back in your office. You examine an E/M visit and determine if it is separately billable and why or why not? What do the abbreviations on the note mean? How does the diagnosis play into the E/M and the surgical procedure? This is the session to be a coding detective—it will be fun and informative! 2:25 p.m.-3:25 p.m. Straight Talk on Coding Out-of-Office Nursing Facility and E/M Visits
Correctly coding E/M visits when providers venture out of the office can be daunting for even the most experienced coders. For example: The rules for using this year’s new initial nursing facility codes 99304-99306 vary dramatically depending on who’s performing the service. You need a solid understanding of federal, state and even facility guidelines before you can correctly assign the newly revised nursing facility, domiciliary and home care E/M codes. Get the straight talk from Stephanie Fiedler, Director of Provider Relations, Park Avenue Health Care, White Plains, N.Y., who will give you clear guidance on complex issues including:
3:25 p.m.-3:45 p.m. Refreshment Break 3:45 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Powerful, Proactive Prescriptions to Prevent Hardening of the Attitudes 9:50 a.m.-10:50 a.m. 6 Tips to Tilt Those Managed Care Contracts in  Lucy Mungle,
CPABusiness Office Manager Neurological Associates Richmond, Va. Ever thought it would be great to know what the HMOs know about contracting with physician practices? You’re in luck. Lucy Mungle, CPA, Business Office Manager, Neurological Associates, Richmond, Va., spent a decade negotiating for plans. Now she’s on the other side: in a physician practice. She reveals key secrets to successful contract negotiations. For example, how to limit a plan’s ability to recoup old payments. You get common mistakes practices make, such as not forcing plans to update their fee schedules. She shows you how to determine your “income drivers” to ensure adequate reimbursement. Your take-home CD includes a managed care contracting checklist. 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. The Hard-Truth about Payers: 7 Myths to Overcome – and Boost Your Bottom-Line
It’s easy to blame payers for faulty reimbursement but sometimes the hard truth lies within our own processes, which can cost us entitled reimbursements. Rick Carter, President & Senior Director, Equation Consulting, Salt Lake City, unravels 7 common myths that harm physician practice revenues. For example, that your net collections ratio should always be 98% or your gross collection is heading south. Not true. Rick unloads his 25 years of lessons learned in these 7 revenue cycle myths and gets you focused on what really works in boosting collections – and your bottom-line 12:00 p.m.-1:15 p.m. Lunch – Network with your Peers! 1:15 p.m.-2:15 p.m. 8 Ways to Plug Your Revenue Leaks – and Get Your Entitled Reimbursement
Mike Edmonds, Executive Director, Physicians Financial and Management Services, ordova, Tenn., unveils his road map for ensuring adequate reimbursement and enviable A/R. His average days are 33; his collection rate stands at 96%. He shows how to tell if a payer is reimbursing you correctly (this technique alone helped spike his revenues in 2005!). Know when you need to do a self-audit. He also walks you through key A/R reports, how to benchmark your data against your peers’ and supplies your take-home CD with an example of a great weekly A/R report. This session is designed for the advanced biller. 2:25 p.m.-3:25 p.m. 9 (Completely Legal) Tips to Boost Your Revenues  Nancy Jacobson,
CPC, CCS-PPartners Healthcare Consulting Minneapolis, Minn. Busy practices often miss opportunities to improve their billing – and gain entitled reimbursement. Nancy Jacobson, CPC, CCS-P, Partners Healthcare Consulting, Minneapolis, has seen this too many times. She delves into 9 areas that – with a little attention – can make a big financial difference to your practice. From updating your charge tickets to pre-op visits, monitoring utilization of your top codes to capturing hospital services, these tips promise to work for any size practice. Your conference CD includes scripts your front-desk can use to guarantee copay collections, and a cheat-sheet to improve charge capture for hospital services. 3:25 p.m.-3:45 p.m. Refreshment Break 3:45 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Powerful, Proactive Prescriptions to Prevent Hardening of the Attitudes 9:50 a.m.-10:50 a.m. What to Expect from OIG in the Next 12 Months  Jim Kopf former OIG Director of Investigations President, Health Care Oversight New Canaan, Conn. New targets emerge from the government’s chief watchdog agency all the time. 2006 brought crackdowns on power mobility devices, medical necessity, physician-pharmaceutical rep relationships and more. With 2007 only a few months away, it would be wise to get some advance knowledge of what the OIG will be looking for in the coming months. One who is uniquely qualified to do so is Jim Kopf, former OIG Director of Investigations, President, Health Care Oversight, New Canaan, Conn., who used to head the Medicare investigations branch of the agency. Find out from him what his successors can be expected to go after in the coming months…so you can take steps to keep your practice safe. 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. How to Do a Compliance Audit from A-to-Z  Ben Frosch President, Frosch Medical Consultants Plantation, Fla. You think you’re in compliance. In fact, you’ve worked for an entire year on all kinds of processes and tools to make sure that nothing in your practice could cause you the least bit of trouble with government regulators. But are you sure you’ve covered all the bases? One little miss maybe all it takes. That’s why this session, from Ben Frosch, President, Frosch Medical Consultants, Plantation, Fla., on how to audit your practice for all possible fraud – one of the most popular sessions we’ve ever offered – is essential if you really want to protect your practice…and not just comply with a few high profile rules. 12:00 p.m.-1:15 p.m. Lunch – Network with your Peers! 1:15 p.m. -2:15 p.m. Patient Inducements and Discounts – What You Can and Cannot Do
OIG and CMS want to be absolutely certain that physician practices are not in any way paying patients to induce choice of providers or to get unnecessary services billed to Medicare. Their suspicions are having a chilling effect on waivers and discounts, leading many providers to drop such offers entirely. Any benefits offered to patients need to be given according to strict fraud-prevention protocols. Find out from Robert Wade, health care attorney, Baker & Daniels, South Bend, Ind., what you need to do. He lets you know just what the government’s stance on patient co-pay waivers, discounts and items is, discounts that currently work for providers…and why, how Medicare wants to be billed for items or services that were offered at a discount to other payers, how a provider can verify patient need (to prompt a waiver or discount) in a way that will pass OIG and CMS muster, and more. 2:25 p.m.-3:25 p.m. Medically Unnecessary Services: What Are They…How Do You Recognize Them…and How
Diagnostic tests, wound care, prescription drugs, power wheelchairs, mental health and more – the list of services and supplies for which the government questions medical necessity keeps growing. You must make sure you are aware of these new targets as they gain OIG attention, and ensure you know how to recognize if your practice’s approach could invite government attention. Find out from former prosecutor Gabriel Imperato, health care attorney, Broad and Cassel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., just what yardsticks the government uses to measure medical necessity in each of these cases…and what you need to do so your compliance practices don’t leak holes that can leave you vulnerable to a charge of medically unnecessary services. BONUS: Your take-home CD includes medical necessity decision-trees to help you make the right decisions. 3:25 p.m.-3:45 p.m. Refreshment Break 3:45 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Powerful, Proactive Prescriptions to Prevent Hardening of the Attitudes  Jack Singer, Ph.D. Laguna Niguel, Calif. It can be difficult – with frustrations over falling reimbursement rates and incoherent payer policies – to sustain a positive attitude. When your attitude at work is negative, it can affect your home life. Psychologist and professional speaker Jack Singer, Ph.D., Laguna Niguel, Calif., combines entertainment with enlightenment to give you a practical, easy-to-master strategy for ultimate attitude control that will change your life – both at work and home. 5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. Reception – Special Vegas Entertainment, Wine & Cheese and Prizes CODING - BILLING - COMPLIANCE |
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