November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month. A perfect time to revisit this topic!
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the U.S., and smoking causes almost a half a million deaths per year.
Rural NC Road in Autumn. Photo used with permission
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General.
The Quality Payment Program (QPP) Small Practices Newsletter is a monthly resource that provides small practices (15 or fewer clinicians) with program updates, upcoming QPP milestones, and resources to support their continued participation and success in QPP. The newsletter is sent on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.
CMS identified phishing scams for medical records. This may include scammers faxing you fraudulent medical records requests to get you to send patient records in response; see example (PDF).
Medicare pays for opioid use disorder (OUD) screenings performed by physicians and non-physician practitioners. If you diagnose your patient with OUD, they also pay for treatment services.
National Healthcare Decisions Day exists to inspire, educate and empower the public and providers about the importance of advance care planning. It is an initiative to encourage patients to express their wishes regarding healthcare and for providers and facilities to respect those wishes, whatever they may be. (Source: https://theconversationproject.org/nhdd/)
Today we bring you some news from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2024 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule. CMS has finalized a new stand-alone G Code (G0136) to pay for administering an SDOH risk assessment, no more than once every 6 months:
G0136: Administration of a standardized, evidence-based SDOH assessment, 5-15 minutes, not more often than every 6 months.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) retroactively added two new CPT codes for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine administration to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule files effective for dates of service on and after October 6, 2023.
Did you know?
The typical primary care physician caring for Medicare patients must coordinate care with 229 other physicians working in 117 practices?
The 2024 Final Rule from CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) established a new code to ensure Primary Care Providers receive additional payment for the high-value visits they provide.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) opened data submission for Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) eligible clinicians who participated in the 2023 performance year of the Quality Payment Program (QPP) on January 2, 2024. Data can be submitted and updated until 8:00 p.m. ET on April 1, 2024.
