Physician's Practice - November 2008 - (Page 52)

ASK THE EXPERTS after insurance and charity write-offs, generally collect 40 percent to 50 percent. Where can I find the comparable numbers for physician practices? • Florida Hospital Association: www.fha.org MEDICARE DENIALS A According to data we have from athenahealth, practices collect about 80 percent of deductibles and coinsurance. With smaller bills and a closer relationship to the patient, you’d expect practice collection rates to be better than those of hospitals. To get the full data, visit PhysiciansPractice.com and search for “self-pay.” PAYER PENETRATION RATES Q Medicare seems to be denying 93000 (EKG) more than usual. Should I be using a modifier? The denial code is 16: Claim service lacks information, which is needed for adjudication. A Given the denial code, I don’t think coding is at issue. But apparently, there is some information that is missing on the claim. Look for a remark code on the far left side of the paper remittance. This will advise you about what is missing or incomplete. SPLITTING OVERHEAD A Yes, overhead allocation can be a burden for multi-specialty groups as the primary-care docs generally can’t carry an equal burden of overhead relative to surgical or procedural specialists. And, yes, compensation and overhead need to be looked at as a whole. There is no norm, per se. It’s more like negotiation for temporary truces that work for each practice. CHARTING QUALITY ASSURANCE Q How do I find out more on the market penetration of various commercial managed companies in my county? I live in Florida. A Generally, insurance commissioners and state hospital associations are good places to ask. Here are some speciﬁc links for Florida: • Florida Insurance Council: www.ﬂains.org Q I am looking for a tool I can use to improve quality assurance in my physicians’ charting, especially updating their problem lists. Do you have a suggestion? A I suppose my response would depend on what process you use now, and I’d like to know why your physicians aren’t updating their problem lists. For example, nursing staff may be able to update the list for them at intake, so physicians would just have to add what is revealed in the exam. Q Do you have a “norm” for how multi-physician practices typically split overhead? I know most practices set compensation as the amount docs earn, less overhead. But how do some practices come up with the percentage of overhead for each doc, if some are more or less productive than others? 52 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | NOVEMBER 2008 WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.fha.org http://www.PhysiciansPractice.com http://www.PhysiciansPractice.com http://www.flains.org http://www.ambir.com/pp http://www.ambir.com/pp http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physician's Practice - November 2008

Physician's Practice - November 2008 Contents Death of Solo Practice Just a Myth Letters HSAy What? Noteworthy Finding Lost Revenue: The Search for Billing and Coding Gold Getting More: Our Annual Physician Compensation Survey ’Tis the Season to be Neutral Ask the Experts Evaluating Paperless Labs HR in a Box? The Guide Coding Third-Party Audits on the Rise Branding the Cash-Only Practice Intra-Office Tug-of-Wars Stickin‘ Up For Yourself Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physician's Practice - November 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.