I just spent eight hours traveling to beautiful Charlotte North Carolina to participate in Functional Pathways 360 CEU Symposium event!  While driving, I spent a lot of time thinking of the conversations I have had this week with therapists and assistants, with Regional Managers, and with Clinical Managers.  I thoroughly enjoy working with my colleagues on improving our coding skills and documentation skills to reflect all of the elite patient...

As healthcare providers you have seen a multitude of changes occurring over the last few years. Some of these changes last and some don’t. This tends to make one hesitate before acting to see if those changes will in fact stick. The conventional wisdom is that you don’t want to go charging headlong down a path with time and resources before you know it is the right thing to do. One of the changes that has come down recently is the Affordable...

On May 1, 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule [CMS-1446-P] outlining proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Medicare payment rates for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). The FY2014 proposals are summarized below. Changes to payment rates under the SNF Prospective Payment System (PPS) Based on proposed changes contained within this rule, CMS estimates that aggregate payments to SNFs will increase by $500...

Often in the course of our day as therapists and nursing care givers, we encounter numerous complaints of pain and discomfort from our long term residents. How do you respond? Pain is a complex sensory and emotional experience and is a subjective, multidimensional experience unique to each individual. Each and every resident complaint of pain must be acknowledged and, in some manner, clinically addressed to ensure optimal functional outcome...

Often we receive questions from the field regarding coding of therapy diagnoses and we wish we could just “add” any ICD-9 code to the computer system.  However, we have to base the selection of the codes off of the Medicare Administrative Contractor’s (MACs) Local Coverage Determination.  So what are Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs)? In order to understand the LCD, we have to first look at what Medicare considers as...

Ok I admit it. I am a dinosaur. I don’t do facebook, I don’t tweet, truth be told I can barely produce a ten word text in under a minute. Just because I am a dinosaur that doesn’t mean I have to go the way of one. Just because I don’t personally participate fully in the electronic world we live in does not mean I cannot appreciate its incredible power to communicate. The same can be said for you as well. I am of the understanding that...

I know that the mandatory ‘go live’ date isn’t until July 1st for claims to be in compliance with G-Codes and Severity Modifiers.  However, why wait until the last minute?  If you haven’t contacted you software vendor to discuss when they will be ready to accept the G-Codes and Severity Modifiers, I strongly recommend that you don’t wait any longer. I know, July seems still far away (especially if you live in the...