Here in Ohio, it is that time again when we see a change in the weather, the leaves turning colors, and we begin preparing for the holidays….OH!! Thanks for reminding me—I need to buy Halloween candy!!
Not only will we have beggars knocking on our doors, turkey dinners, and gifts from the heart, we also have PHYSICAL THERAPY MONTH!
I would like to extend to all of my physical therapists and physical therapist assistant colleagues my appreciation for all you do regardless of which setting you provide Physical Therapy!! THANK YOU!!
Being in the roll of a Compliance Director, I support the field in many areas. Reflecting in the past year, we have had some regulatory changes that we had to implement with part B therapy and at the same time provide outstanding therapy care to our patients. We went to school to study Physical Therapy to “make people better” and to improve awareness in our communities of wellness, rehab, and functional independence. No matter if you have to restore, compensate, and/or adapt function and/or a patient’s environment, we have to realize that if it was easy, everyone would do it. I truly believe that.
If you read my blogs, you have seen information on manual medical review, functional limitation reporting, documentation quality, ICD-10 just to name a few. But now once again we are faced with the Medicare Part B cap exception process coming to an end December 31st. I am sure those of us who treat Medicare Part B beneficiaries are all in agreement—-something needs to change with the part B cap. First, we need Congress to act to extend the part B exceptions process for 2014 at least. But more importantly, we need Congress to repeal the part B cap altogether. Our Medicare Part B patients deserve to have the coverage they pay in to for therapy without restrictions because they are the ones who typically have multiple co-morbidities and/or progressive disease processes impacting their function.
A large part of our responsibility as being a Physical Therapist or Physical Therapist Assistant is to advocate for our patients. I cannot think of a better time to advocate since October is National Physical Therapy Month!! Visit www.NASL.org and you will see the action alerts to prevent a hard cap from implementation as well as a link to urge Congress to repeal the therapy caps. Thank you for ALL you do!!
Gina Tomcsik
Director of Compliance
Functional Pathways
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