First Coast Service Options, Medicare Administrative Contractor for the state of Florida, has published a guide to educate providers on common documentation errors for outpatient rehabilitation therapy services. The leading cause of payment errors for therapy is insufficient documentation in the medical records. In the guide, First Coast discusses issues with the contents of the plan of care, signature and certification requirements for the plan of care, daily note documentation, and functional limitation reporting. Even though this guide was published by First Coast for the state of Florida, the guide would be beneficial to all therapists who treat Medicare outpatients

The MIST Therapy System, CPT Code 97610, consists of an equipment component (an ultrasonic generator and transducer) and a disposable component (sterile applicator). The sterile disposable applicator is attached to the generator’s transducer and has been designed to accept a pre-packaged sterile bottle of saline. Generally, treatment consists of three sessions per week, during which time the nurse or therapist holds the device near the wound while ultrasonic energy generated by the device atomizes the saline and delivers a continuous mist to the treatment site. The disposable applicator contains an on/off valve that controls the flow of sterile saline to

National Government Services (NGS) will be hosting 3 webinars specific for their therapy providers and the webinars will review the local coverage determination, supplemental instructions article and important information for their therapy providers for 2014. The webinars will take place on April 22, May 15, and June 11.

On April 9, 2014, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the release of new, privacy-protected data on services and procedures provided to Medicare beneficiaries by physicians and other health care professionals. The new data also show payment and submitted charges, or bills, for those services and procedures by provider. The new data set has information for over 880,000 distinct health care providers, including physical, occupational and speech therapists in private practice, who collectively received $77 billion in Medicare payments in 2012, under the Medicare Part B Fee-For-Service program. With this data, it will be possible to conduct