Washington, DC-The Sixth National Congress on Health Care Compliance being held Feb. 5 to 7 in Washington, DC, will focus on new areas of special interest for the compliance professional, including corporate responsibility and governance; patient safety and quality of care; and privacy, data security, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance.
San Francisco-The Academy Network (TAN), the largest national membership organization of administrators, office managers, and managing physicians of ophthalmology practices, is changing its name to the American Academy of Ophthalmic Executives (AAOE).
Washington, DC-As Congress resumes its post-election session, doctors frustrated by continued cuts in the Medicare physician fees are lobbying for change.
Like an old car, our office practice management system ran well for about 10 years and then gave up the ghost. Actually, it wasn't so much the system that failed as the company that sold us the system and helped maintain it.
Parsippany, NJ-Physicians who purchase at least 50 frames from Safilo USA collections before Sept. 30 will be eligible for gifts as part of the company's third-quarter incentive program.
New York-Achieving success in an optical dispensary requires a continued, innovative marketing effort by the entire office staff, according to two experts who spoke on the subject at the American Association of Dispensing Ophthalmologists (AADO) 6th Dispensing Ophthalmology Conference held during this year's International Vision Expo East.
If you want to maximize your dispensary sales, great merchandising is the answer. Patients respond well to dispensary merchandising. It can mean the difference between mediocre eyewear sales and a very profitable bottom line.
Some ophthalmic patients of Charley Andrews, MD, cannot find family physicians who still take Medicare patients because of the recent, devastating Medicare pay cuts.
Business-like conduct of a medical practice is a necessity in the 21st century. Defensive medicine is being replaced by cost-benefit analysis.
If your practice does any appreciable amount of cataract surgery, it is important to make sure that both your optical and billing staff are well trained in the proper paperwork procedures should patients require eyewear after surgery. This means providing eyewear that satisfies and enhances both their vision needs and their personal preferences.
Alameda, CA-Early indications are that the Ocugene glaucoma genetic test (InSite Vision, Alameda, CA) has the potential of becoming a useful tool in determining the likelihood of glaucoma development or progression in certain patients.
Physicians are faced with the need to document clinical examinations for ongoing clinical care in addition to increasing requirements for billing, as a deterrent against claims of fraud and abuse and for malpractice protection. With the typical medical encounter often less than 10 minutes, only a small fraction of this time can be dedicated for documentation purposes.
Everything has changed since Sept. 11, as we've so often heard. But some things have remained the same.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), enacted in 1996, included provisions for simplifying the transaction involved with Medicare claims submission. In August of last year, the first provision was published regarding the standardization of claims via electronic filing.
Ophthalmologists continue to be concerned about decreasing reimbursement for cataract surgery and the increasing nonreimbursed costs of utilizing new technology. I believe, however, that the future for lens and implant surgery is rosy.
Today, when patients come for a visit, ophthalmologists have the discretionof using either the eye codes (92002 to 92014) or the E/M codes in billing.But, when is it truly appropriate to use a certain set of codes for a givenvisit? Unfortunately, there's no one standard. It all depends on the rulesset by the carriers in your state.