Zachary Foundation

Come join Michael Friedberg of HNLY, and other healthcare industry members in support of the Zachary Foundation on October 5, 2011 at the Barry L. Schiff Memorial Healthcare Classic golfing event. 

The Zachary Foundation was founded by the parents and friends of Zachary Friedberg of Morganville, New Jersey who suffers from a rare form of Mitochondrial Disease.

Bring your golf game and come out.

MAS has been in many of The Zachary Foundation golf outings and they have always been a lot of fun. This year they are honoring three of the long time supporters Andrew Goold, VP of The Healthsearch Group, James Y. Lee, FACHE Executive VP and  COO of Lawrence Hospital Center and Adam K. Weinstein, FACHE VP for Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Compliance New York Hospital Queens.

Michael Friedberg who has played an important role in healthcare through the years and deserves our industry’s full support, says “Throughout the years we have been privileged to have support from many people and organizations, it is the commitment of these three individuals that has been the driving force for our success. Their gift to Zachary and children like him who suffer from Mitochondrial Disease has been given not for recognition or personal gain but only due to each of their own selflessness. My family and the entire Mitochondrial Disease community are forever in their debt.”

Registration is still open! I look forward to seeing you there!

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If you’ve never worked a sales position, then you pretty much got paid just for showing up to work, even if you don’t perform your best.  Imagine if the amount of money you earned was directly tied into your level of performance on the job? Most people avoid sales positions because they need the guarantee of steady income and don’t want to be judged on the job.

Lately, a lot of industries are using a pay for performance strategy, including healthcare. Pay for performance can impact the state of the industry by affecting the cost and quality of healthcare. We like to see the healthcare industry is taking a page out of the business handbook.

At MAS, we love the concept and practice it with our Pay 4 Performance guarantee. Our medical billing clients don’t pay us until they get paid. We love accepting the challenge of hitting account receivables and collections goals for our clients.

We see “pay 4 performance” as an incentive produce. We know when we work hard we’ll get paid for the results. Here’s a question for you. Would you “work for performance”? Let us know what you think about the pay for performance concept.

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ACO’s may already be at risk, due to recent budget cutting measures passed by the House of Representatives that would restructure Medicare and Medicaid. If the Ryan budget is fully passed, it will likely start the countdown to the end of Accountable Care Organizations, which were created under the Obamacare law.

Currently Medicare is a “fee for service system” where healthcare providers are paid for each service rendered. At it’s current rate of reimbursement government spending on Medicare increases 7.2 percent each year and is projected to consume every dollar produced in the United States in only a few years.  To try and prevent this, the Ryan budget begins a slow transition away from the current fee for service system to a voucher program that would allow seniors to buy private insurance free of charge.

This move is expected to save billions of dollars in Medicare spending and will guarantee coverage for seniors who otherwise will find themselves exposed when the program runs out of money, while still leaving coverage for those currently on Medicare or nearing retirement unchanged.

As ACOs are currently structured, providers in ACOs receive a portion of every dollar they are able to save Medicare in the form of a bonus.  Under the proposed plan however Medicare would only be buying insurance for people not paying doctors directly, removing the main draw of an ACO for doctors and hospitals ultimately rendering ACOs a thing of the past.

So are ACOs almost a thing of the past before they even become reality? Chime in and let us know what think–post a comment below or on our Facebook page.

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The post talks about how several New Jersey hospitals are touting low wait times in an effort to attract patients to their Emergency Departments, according to a Wall Street Journal report (how entrepreneurial !!)

It reads Bayonne (N.J.) Medical Center recently unveiled two billboards in Jersey City that advertise the hospital’s emergency room wait times.  The billboards are updated with current wait times several times a day.  While Christ Hospital in Jersey City plans to display its wait times on its website.

I am proud of these healthcare institutions for acting on the need in the market to better serve patients (i.e. customers) by streamlining their ED operations,  then creating a product to market  in an advertising campaign.  I am sure a smart phone application is on the way!

Well to the contrary,  I had to go and read Branwen Jeffreys’ blog in the BBC health news Kings Fund: Waiting times in England at three-year high.  The King’s Fund is an English charity that seeks to understand how the health system in England can be improved.  The Kings Fund statistics for February show 15% of patients waited over 18 weeks for treatment, the longest time since April 2008.  It argues the shift is due to the financial pressures on the NHS.

So now, I am wondering if Obamacare could stifle the competitive spirit.  And could long wait times  become a trend in the U.S one day?

Kings Fund chief economist Professor John Appleby said the health service was now operating in a different climate.

“In the past the two things that kept waiting down were targets and extra money. Managers got sacked for not meeting targets. And of course in the future there won’t be the same amount of extra money.”

The official waiting figures are only part of the picture. As the BBC recently found, some parts of the NHS in England have introduced new restrictions on treatment or put routine operations on hold for several months. None of this appears in the statistics as it occurs before the clock starts.

For me this is the frustration of healthcare reform, there is still not enough firm information out there to get our arms around to understand what direction we need to focus on.  What I do believe is that solid business ideals are going to make it shine!

I just hope there won’t be too many rules around it to prevent  it from doing what is intended to do.  Cut costs and deliver excellence in healthcare.  What’s your take?

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All too often our issues with healthcare revolves around political issues, whether or not we can get access to treatment or coverage under our insurance providers and so on. On the front lines institutions battle with overworked billing departments and indifferences with insurance providers. Thrown in budget cuts and having to do more with less and still provide top care to patients who are dealing with serious health issues is an almost impossible task.

With all that is going on today, rarely is there a place where healthcare’s best and brightest come together to take on the challenges ahead.

We all know there is power in numbers so we’ve launched a group on LinkedIn called Turnaround Healthcare.

Turnaround Healthcare is a professional community for those who are dedicated to improving the wellbeing for today’s American Healthcare system through better management and implementing best practices.

Outside of healthcare, research tells us that teams working together are more successful and make fewer mistakes than do individuals. These studies show a strong relationship between qualities such as flexibility, adaptability, resistance to stress, cohesion, retention and morale with effective team performance.

Join us!! Healthcare experts, providers and networkers, let’s take our business know-how and entrepreneurial spirit to the healthcare world and mentor them to turnaround.

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The post talks about how an uninsured woman“Betty” with over 400-plus visits to a Trenton area hospitals during 2010  and battling health issues and drug addiction, was able to get back on her feet again. Thanks to the help of a group of doctors in a NJ ACO, Betty is much healthier today.

In her blog,  Stainton wrote “she’s been off the streets for six months; she’s struggling to stay clean; and she has only visited the emergency room a handful of times this year. Thanks to a coalition of doctors, nurses and specialists that make up the Trenton Health Team, Betty and others like her have seen real improvements in their health. And if early indicators hold true, the bill for their treatment could be cut nearly in half”.

I always under stood how the ACO model could work in terms of streamlining services and costs savings.  But for me, this example shows how an uninsured woman was able to gain access to a team of doctors focused on healing her  personal and health issues. Whether or not this is an exception to the rule is something we should study more as the ACO debate rolls on.

As stated “The ACO model — which plays a prominent role in the federal health care reform effort now being developed — is centered on improving treatment of chronic conditions, like diabetes and high blood pressure, reducing emergency room visits and hospitalizations, and coordinating patient care among all providers in a geographic region, like Camden or Trenton. It is technology-dependent, requiring good healthcare data to identify the patients and communities most in need, as well as electronic patient records immediately accessible to all doctors and hospitals treating a patient.”

The article goes on to answer many questions and providing educating facts on ACO’s.  You can read more by clicking here “Bill Would Expand “Accountable” HealthCare in New Jersey”

What are your thoughts is this the future healthcare?

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Bill recommends that hospitals focus on doing what they do best, and let others—experts—take care of the rest!  Click here now to watch the video on the front page of the MAS website!

A special thanks to the HBA for all of their support!!

About MAS: Is there a certain area in your medical billing process which is slowing you down or eating into profits?  You no longer have to let an unmet billing need undermine your strength and efficiency.  With its team of talented medical billing experts, Medical Account Solutions (MAS) can help your healthcare organization identify and focus on your unique problem and fill the void to keep your billing processes running smoothly.

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Your Medical Billing Office Newsletter Preview

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With the new law, doctors who advise patients on end of life planning will be paid by the government. As quoted in the article “The new rule says Medicare will cover “voluntary advance care planning,” to discuss end-of-life treatment, as part of the annual visit.”

The article also goes on to discuss concerns expressed by opponents of the new regulation that “…the Obama administration was bringing back a procedure that could be used to justify the premature withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from people with severe illnesses and disabilities.”

Read more about this new legislation and then come back and  tell us what you think about “end-of-life planning”

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1. Make sure to collect a patient’s copay prior to their visit–this may seem obvious or perhaps “no big deal”, however, some insurer’s payment is the copay alone and no further reimbursement will be made. Failure to secure this cash upfront could mean that you will not see another dime for this visit.
2. Check to make sure a patient is truly eligible with their insurer. Some patients may not even be aware that their coverage has been canceled, others may try to be seen without insurance. It is too late to collect payment once the patient is out of the office.
3. Check to see if an authorization is necessary for this patient’s visit. Insurers are routinely making policy changes that you may not have realized; all it takes is a quick phone call to be certain.
4. Get a copy of the patient’s insurance card, front and back. This is your insurance to make sure there weren’t any keystroke errors during intake, or, to be certain that there isn’t a different phone number for a patient’s particular policy.
5. Check prior visits to be certain there are no outstanding balances due. Perhaps the patient owes coinsurance or a deductible has been applied to your visit. A patient is more likely to pay their bill when they are standing in front of you, as opposed to when they receive a bill in the mail.

You might think that these steps are all obvious, however, I assure you they are not. Furthermore, one may not realize these are necessary steps, unless you are familiar with the billing process. Your front-end staff is not only there as a smiling face to greet patients, they should also be looked upon as a conduit between the patient and the biller. If steps taken during intake are done haphazardly, your bottomline will be affected. Share these with all members of your staff, so that you can feel confident that you are maximizing your collections.

It’s also important for you to keep an eye on unpaid claims and make sure that your medical billing is as profitable as it should be. If you’re not sure where to start, I suggest using the MAS Profitability Calculator to make sure your office isn’t losing money. Just sign up for the your complimentary copy of the MAS Profitability Calculator from the home page of the MAS site now*.

*We respect your privacy and will NEVER rent or sell your personal information… Ever!

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