Navigating reimbursement claims can be time consuming for staff and costly to your center. Join us for a discussion including practice efficiency, how to effectively contract and communicate with your payers and how to comply with the October 2014 implementation of ICD-10

In August members were notified that the AASM has suspended indefinitely the requirement for accredited sleep centers to score hypopneas in adult patients according to the 3 percent oxygen desaturation criterion in the new AASM scoring manual. AASM sleep centers must specify in the PSG report whether hypopneas were scored using the recommended rule 1A or the acceptable rule 1B.

On Sept. 9 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it will once again delay implementation of the required face-to-face encounters for certain durable medical equipment (DME). 

Join the AASM for a free live webinar on Tuesday October 1 at 5pm Central to learn about the Medicare Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and the PQRSwizard registry.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a new version of the form required for submission of paper claims.  CMS will begin to accept the new CMS-1500 form (version 02/12) on January 1, 2014. 

The practice management section of the AASM website has been updated to include archived copies of letters sent to private payers regarding their sleep medicine policies.   Recent letters now available for download include a policy comment letter sent to Humana and letters sent to MVP and Cigna regarding their preauthorization protocols. 

On Aug. 27 the AASM sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) outlining our concerns about proposed payment cuts to sleep medicine services in the 2014 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule.

On Aug. 15 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies posted the proceedings from a February 2013 workshop, “Partnering with Patients to Drive Shared Decisions, Better Value, and Care Improvement.” Attendees discussed how patients and families can be empowered to become active partners in their health care.

After two program implementation delays, mandatory reporting under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, now known as Open Payments began on August 1, 2013.  The Open Payments program is a provision under the Affordable Care Act which requires disclosure of transfer of value such as payments, gifts and investments made by medical device manufacturers and drug companies to physicians.

On July 8 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the display copy of the 2014 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule, which reflects proposed updates to payment policies and payment rates for services billed on or after Jan. 1, 2014. The field of sleep medicine is projected to experience cuts to payment for all services in 2014. CMS will modify and finalize policies and rates for 2014 in a subsequent final rule with an expected publication date of Nov. 1, 2013.