Watching the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball drop is a well-practiced tradition in households across America. The excitement builds as the clock counts down, culminating with the ball reaching the bottom exactly at midnight.
In your medical practice, dropping the ball is not a point of celebration. Ensure minimal impacts to your cash flow by making preparations now for billing changes ahead in 2015.
On Monday, January 29, 2014, CMS announced in its MLN Connects Provider eNews – Special Edition that they will be holding Medicare Physician Fee schedule claims with 2015 dates of service.
After the CY 2015 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) final rule that was published on November 13, 2014, some technical errors were discovered.
In order to be able to process claims correctly, Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) will need to hold MPFS claims with 2015 service dates with no effect on 2014 services billed in 2015. This hold will be in effect for the first 14 calendar days, January 1 through January 14, 2015.
CMS states the impact on cash flow will likely be minimal as the processing timeline falls within the parameters of the current law. That law states that clean electronic claims are not paid sooner than 14 calendar days (29 days for paper claims) after the date of receipt.
Your best plan for reducing effects of the hold is to get your claims out to the payer as quickly as possible. For medical practices that can utilize import capabilities from their electronic health record (EHR) instead of manual data entry, it is easy to generate your claims within just hours of providing the service.
Our Iridium Suite medical billing software clients can take advantage of our Connectivity Clearinghouse technology. It has the ability to communicate with your EHR by using the HL7 standard data protocol.
Contact us for a free demo today!!
