Certainly the implementation of an annual wellness visit for Medicare beneficiaries is a step in the right direction; however,it does not necessarily solve the problem of problems encountered during the visit. I bring this up as most of my primary care clients will agree that it’s a rare occasion where a Medicare beneficiary is scheduling for a true “preventative visit”. Typically, this is a visit to follow-up on old problems and most commonly a host of new issues. Under the PPPS requirements, the annual wellness visit includes at a minimum the fol

CMS recently released Transmittal 123 (Change Request 6950) on April 30, 2010 on Determining Self-Administration of Drugs or Biologicals which took effect on April 30, 2010. Transmittal 123 provided contractors with updates to manual language related to the determination of self-administration of drugs and biologicals, to allow for other routes of administration besides injections to be considered as not usually self-administered based on some new drugs that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

In a report issued on August 5, 2009, the OIG examined days that Medicare allows more than 24 hours of services billed by a single physician and sought to identify the services physicians bill to Medicare but do not perform personally and the qualifications of nonphysicians performing "Incident To" services.  The OIG found that: 

On December 12, 2008, CMS published notice in the Federal Register that it had submitted a revised Disclosure of Financial Relationships Report ("DFRR") audit form to the Office of Management and Budget for review ("OMB").  The DFRR form will be used by CMS to identify arrangements that potentially may not be in compliance with the physician self-referral statute/regulations and to identify examples and areas of noncompliance that may assist CMS in f