ASC Coding, Billing & Collections

A Portland, Maine, physician has agreed to pay $321,000 to settle false billing claims for federal healthcare programs, according to Sea Cost Online.

At the 19th Annual Ambulatory Surgery Centers Conference in Chicago, Lisa Rock, President of National Medical Billing Services, will give a presentation titled "Handling of Out-of-Network Successfully From a Billing and Coding Perspective."

The Department of Health and Human Services recently sent letters to providers notifying them that MaineCare will no longer reimburse for ambulatory surgery center services, according to a Kennebec Journal report.

More payors are introducing bundled payment programs, giving surgery centers and hospitals the ability to accept a pre-determined rate for a procedure in exchange for higher volume from the payor. In this scenario, the payor and the facility also work…

Using observation units more efficiently could save hospitals $4.6 million annually and $3.1 billion nationally, according to Healthcare Finance News.

Verizon's Enterprise Solutions group has created a cloud service portfolio that will meet HIPAA requirements for safeguarding electronic health information, according to HealthcareIT.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be hosting a free health plan identifier webinar and a HIPAA testing pilot in preparation for the Oct. 1, 2014, ICD-10 implementation deadline.

Louisiana healthcare professionals are suing Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon for an emergency rule created that prohibits balance-billing for patients after natural disasters, according to American Medical News.

As healthcare provider groups fought back against the Department of Health and Human Services warning about upcoding, they contested that more coding does is not the same as coding fraud, according to Fierce Healthcare.

Medical providers can expect more Medicare and Medicaid audits to result from the Affordable Care Act, according to McKnight's.