HCPro.com: Briefings on Outpatient Rehab: Reimbursement and Regulations

Ever-changing reimbursement policies and government regulations affects your facility's ability to stay in compliance. Briefings on Outpatient Rehab Reimbursement & Regulations reports on these changes and offers suggestions on how best to cope with them.

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August 2008 (Volume 13, Issue 8)	view entire issue

Congress delays full implementation of therapy caps
As the July 1 expiration date for the therapy caps exceptions process approached, therapists waited for Congress to pass legislation to extend the exceptions process. This year's Medicare bill, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (HR 6331), includes a provision to extend the exceptions process for 18 months. However, Congress was unable to pass the bill before the July 1 deadline, allowing the therapy caps to go into full effect again.

Going digital: Implementing electronic records in your practice
Electronic health records (EHR) have long been a hot topic in healthcare, but the discussion around electronic records has heated up even more this summer. In June, EHRs made headlines after The New England Journal of Medicine published a survey that suggested fewer than 20% of physicians use electronic records. That same month, the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) House of Delegates passed a resolution on EHRs, calling on PTs to work with the APTA to adopt interoperable EHRs, which are electronic records that store and process health information and have tools for administrative processes and clinical decision-making.

Fitness and wellness programs: Make your practice more fiscally fit
Declining reimbursement rates and physicians who only refer patients to PT clinics they own have been longtime gripes of therapists. Paul Gaspar, PT, DPT, CCS, president and founder of Doctors of Physical Therapy in Encinitas, CA, developed an innovative way to address those problems when he introduced the GRAVITY program at his practice in 2007. The fitness program uses GRAVITY machines, workout machines manufactured by efi Sports Medicine, which many PTs already use in their practices.

BRRR coding corner
Editor's note: This column appears monthly in BRRR to help answer subscribers' coding questions. Rick Gawenda, PT, director of rehabilitation services at Detroit Receiving Hospital and owner of Gawenda Seminars in Ypsilanti, MI, answered the coding questions below.

Other recently-published articles from Briefings on Outpatient Rehab: Reimbursement and Regulations:

CMS delays Recovery Audit Contractor program

Tracking productivity: Looking beyond billable units

Know the rules for rehab services in home health setting

Waiving coinsurance may be appropriate at times

BRRR coding corner

Rehab providers should take economy concerns seriously; caution suggested

SLP shortage results in higher salary and benefit demands

Compliance officers crucial to long-term success

Avoid entering a corporate integrity agreement

BRRR Q&A

Medicare changes give more SLPs option to go private in 2009

Manage your facility’s front office well for good first impressions and a successful practice

Don’t let backend operations be your facility’s downfall

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