CMS has announced that they are extending the deadline for eligible professionals to attest to meaningful use for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program 2013 reporting year. With the extension, providers have one extra month to submit their data, as the deadline has been pushed back from February 28, 2014 to March 31, 2014. For providers with questions about registration and attestation, CMS has a an EHR Information Call Center : 1-888-734-6433, ...

The National Uniform Claim Committee has developed and approved a new version of the HCFA 1500 claim form so that it is fully in line with the 5010 Standards and can accommodate the new ICD-10 code set. While the NUCC has been working on this new claim form since 2009, it received official approval in June, 2013. The key dates for transitioning to the Updated Form are as follows: January ...

Time for the annual update on Medicare’s fee schedule! Please see below for a full briefing on the legislation currently in Congress regarding a permanent solution to the flawed SGR formula that is currently on the books for adjusting the Medicare fee schedule. Under the SGR formula, physician payments were scheduled to be cut by 20.1% for 2014. Instead of the 20.1% cut, there will be a temporary .5% increase, ...

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is encouraging the public to get vaccinated for the 2013-2014 flu season. Below is a tool that HHS released to assist individuals in finding the closest location that offers flu vaccines. If your office does not provide flu shots, you may want to encourage patients that are interested in vaccination to use this app, or visit HHS.Gov to find additional information and frequently asked ...

Today marks the final day of October, the nationally recognized month for Breast Cancer Awareness. Of course, the whole point of the campaign is not to simply bring out our pink ribbons for a few weeks and then stow them away again until next year. Instead — we all collectively use this opportunity to remind ourselves and one another that we must continue to support efforts toward finding the cure and promote an awareness ...

Healthcare Data Management, Inc. is a proud sponsor of What’s Up Magazines’ 2013 Top Doc celebration in Annapolis, MD. Biannually, What’s Up Magazine invites local physicians to nominate their peers for the honor of “Top Doc” in each of the major American Board of Medical Specialties. This year’s celebration for the award-winning physicians was held at the Four Seasons Grill. HDM’s President, Cheryl Gundry, and Director of Operations, Megan Brauner, were proud to ...

Just as the government went into partial shutdown, the ACA insurance exchanges opened on Tuesday, October 1, 2013.  (You can check out Maryland’s exchange, the “Maryland Health Connection” here: https://www.marylandhealthconnection.gov/). While it is difficult to anticipate the exact effects that your practice will see from the implementation of the exchanges and the newly insured, the article below – written by consultant Elizabeth Woodcock – provides practical information on the subject. ...

The federal Fiscal Year 2014 began on Tuesday, October 1st, at 12:01 AM with a partial government shutdown. The Congress and the President could not – and still have not – agreed upon an appropriations bill that fully funds the operation of the federal government. As a result, hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed, and multiple government buildings, national parks, and government services have been suspended. While ...

On August 9, 2013, CMS issued an announcement that the 2014 General Equivalence Mappings (GEMs) have been posted for diagnosis codes and for inpatient procedure codes. The GEMS show the mapping or crosswalk between ICD-9 and ICD-10, and the backward crosswalk from ICD-10 to ICD-9. While this tool certainly does not eliminate the need for continued training and preparation for ICD-10, the GEMs can be a valuable resource for doctors, ...