CEUs:


This program is pre-approved by the Board of Medical Specialty Coding (BMSC) for 4 CEUs toward any BMSC ACS or SCP credential.

8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. — Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. — Scope of practice: Know what your NPPs can and can’t do before it’s too late
Medicare has specific rules for the types of services NPPs can render and bill, and definitions for types of NPPs. Your state may have something else to say, and that impacts how you bill. It’s easy to become confused. When you allow an NPP to render — and then try to claim payment for — a service NPPs can’t do in your state, you put a lot more than payment at risk. Consultant and physician assistant John Bishop has seen this debate from both the practitioner and the consultant side, and gives you an action plan to ensure you can help your practice get the most it can out of your practitioners, and stay on the right side of Medicare and state regulations. Bonus: You’ll get a state-by-state rundown on restrictions on NPP services.

10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. — Refreshment Break

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. — Tales from the hospital: Shared services and critical care
Does your practice get the most bang for its buck when NPPs work in the hospital setting? Are you billing key shared and critical care services with confidence? Is the increased payer scrutiny of critical care services affecting your practice? George A. Sample, MD, FCCP, an intensivist from the Washington Hospital Center, uses coding guidelines and inpatient scenarios to show you how to make sure your practice is getting properly paid for shared services in the inpatient setting. He also gives you the tools you need to get your NPPs to work on medically necessary critical care services in the inpatient setting. Dr. Sample brings his diverse experiences as CPT advisor for the Society of Critical Care Medicine, vice chairman of the Critical Care Workgroup, Editor for Coding and Billing for Critical Care: A Practice Tool, and his work as a clinical associate professor for George Washington University Medical School to this information-packed session. Bonus: Dr. Sample shares coding scenarios and billing tools you can use at your practice.

12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. — Lunch

1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.  — Incident-to and supervision rules: What you need to know when the billing provider didn’t provide the service
There’s the easy way, and the right way. This session makes the right way easier. The magic phrase “incident-to” has expanded over the years to be a catch-all term for all types of NPP billing scenarios. But it’s actually a specific, and often confused, Medicare benefit. Jean Acevedo, LHRM, CPC, CHC, president of Acevedo Consulting, starts by giving you the definitive rules to clear up your confusion about Medicare’s incident-to rules. She then shares specific coding scenarios to clearly illustrate Medicare   supervision rules and drug administration billing rules. You’ll leave this session with a long overdue easy-to-understand way to make sure your practice bills incident-to services correctly and protects its ability to collect 100% of the allowable for NPP services.

3:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. — Refreshment Break

3:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m. — Nurse or NPP? How to make the best decision for your practice – and your practitioners
Medicare and some other payers will allow your NPPs to bill directly, but nurses are not extended the same courtesy. For you, that means more than just deciding which person renders what service based on reimbursement. You’ll also find yourself managing egos and relationships among all of your practitioners — a key element of your practice’s productivity and financial success. Your physicians don’t want to hear about personality conflicts; they just want to see results. John Bishop returns to give you strategies to ensure your practitioners are working in the best interests of your practice’s financial health — and keep them happy while they do it.


7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. — Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.  — Send your NPP to the SNF/NF – the right way
Skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and nursing facilities (NFs) are hotspot sites-of-service for NPPs – so much so that investigating these services is constantly on the HHS Office of Inspector General’s radar screen. But doing good work in SNFs and NFs involves more than just compliance. Best practices at both of these sites include scheduling for productivity, ensuring services are medically necessary and payable, and making sure your staff gets the documentation it needs so that you get paid what you deserve for the services you provide. Stephanie Fiedler, senior consultant with Loeb & Troper, has been on the front lines of NPP services in the SNF/NF setting for much of her career. She shows you how to make sure your NPP services are payable, productive and compliant with payer policies when your NPPs go to work in SNFs and NFs — or treat SNF and NF patients that come into your practice. BONUS: You get coding grids and references that are SNF-specific to use in your practice.

9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. — Refreshment Break

9:45 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. — NPP medical decision-making: When modesty is NOT the best policy
The simple fact that an NPP provides a service does not dictate that you bill out only lower-level E&M codes. Yes, NPPs don’t have as much clinical training as physicians. But Medicare does not restrict the levels of service NPPs can bill for when they treat patients. So if your practice bills lower-level codes than it’s entitled to, you’re leaving legitimate reimbursement on the table. Expert consultant Jo Ann Steigerwald RHIT, ACS, consultant, Medical Business Specialists, has seen thousands of undercoded NPP claims over the years. She gives you a winning strategy to train NPPs to count the points Medicare uses for billing credit. Plus, she shows you how (and when!) to use counseling in your billing strategy, and how to watch your bottom line grow when NPPs take full credit for the work they do.

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. — Supplies: The hidden cost that can drain your payments
Your practice uses a lot of supplies each day, and many of them are reimbursable ones used by NPPs. Margie Scalley-Vaught, consultant and coding content specialist, DecisionHealth, focuses on two potential leaks in your supply revenue chain – injectable drug supplies and fracture care supplies. She gives you the step-by-step guidance your practice needs to document fully to get the reimbursement you deserve for these supplies. Every practice (not just orthopedics) will benefit from this timely session.


1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. — Interactive audit: An in-depth line-by-line look at E&M services
You can never have enough E&M service training. This intensive post-conference session focuses on E&M services — and E&M documentation. You’re invited to bring along your own E&M notes (once you remove patient information, of course), to this interactive audit of E&M claims where the service was provided by an NPP. Expert consultant Stephanie Fiedler returns to take you through tough E&M claims. She pokes holes in the documentation, and shows you examples of how documenting just a little bit differently can bring thousands of deserved dollars to your practice. She points out examples of documentation that doesn’t hold water and, worst of all — when you reported a lower service than is actually supported by the documentation That means the work was done and the work was documented; you just didn’t get paid for it! You’ll leave with the confidence, the knowledge and the examples to bill these higher-level services like never before.