Year: 2018
-
CMS Publishes 2019 Physician Fee Schedule
UPDATED JULY 27, 2018: CMS Overhauls Office Visit Pay In Proposed 2019 Physician Fee Rule CMS is proposing to overhaul how Medicare pays for office visits and how doctors document those visits in what Administrator Seema Verma said would be “one of the most significant reductions in provider burden ever taken by any administration.” The change,…
-
Association’s New Task Force to Address Health Care Manpower Shortage
In response to a resolution passed by the House of Delegates during the 2018 Annual Meeting in Montgomery in April, the Board of Censors formed a new task force to develop and restore adequate health care manpower in all geographic areas in order to provide quality local health care for all Alabama citizens. The resolution, submitted…
-
CMS Releases Proposed Rule for 2019 Medicare Quality Payment Program
On July 12, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its proposed policies for Year 3 (2019) of the Quality Payment Program via the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The provisions included in the NPRM are reflective of the feedback we received from many stakeholders, and continue to provide additional flexibilities to reduce burden…
-
Do You Qualify for Tax Amnesty?
The Alabama Legislature has enacted the Alabama Tax Delinquency Amnesty Act of 2018 to allow qualifying taxpayers to receive a waiver of penalties and interest on eligible tax types. The application period is now open through Sept. 30, 2018. The Alabama Department of Revenue (ADOR) launched alabamataxamnesty.com, a website dedicated to the Alabama Tax Delinquency Amnesty Program…
-
Do You Know How to Easily Avoid a HIPAA Penalty?
If you have any questions, call PCIHIPAA at (800) 588-0254. Let them know you are a member of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama.
-
-
Association’s Board to Evaluate Prior Authorization Process
The Medical Association recently received information from a consortium of health care providers, which included the American Hospital Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the Medical Group Management Association, who have partnered to identify opportunities to improve the prior authorization process.…
-
It Began with an Email with Stephen Russell, M.D.
LEEDS – Benjamin Franklin said, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” For Leeds family physician Stephen Russell doing both comes naturally. As an associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Russell is living his research for the characters he writes in his works…
-
HIPAA Illiteracy Is Considered Willful Neglect
KNOWING YOUR OFFICE’S VULNERABILITIES IS NOT ENOUGH Unsure of your practice’s vulnerabilities? Judge Rules in Favor of OCR and Requires $4.3 Million in Penalties for HIPAA Violations OCR’s investigation found that MD Anderson had written encryption policies and risk analyses had found that the lack of device-level encryption posed a high…
-
Plan While You Still Can
In our work with hundreds of medical practices, and in our Firm’s medical practice manager roundtable meetings, a common issue among medical practitioners is the uncertainty about the economic future of their medical practices. Reimbursement levels may drop, many patients may choose medical coverage offered by a state-sponsored exchange, and the burden of changing technology…