In a blog post on May 3, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a delay to implementation of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. Referred to as the Sunshine Act, the provision was developed to require physicians to disclose any financial compensation worth more than $10 from pharmaceutical or medical device companies.

Join the AASM coding and compliance experts at SLEEP 2012 on Tuesday, June 12 from 10:15am-12:15pm for the session "Changes to the CPT Guidelines for SLEEP Medicine Services: How Will They Affect My Practice?" The two-hour session will walk attendees through the new Sleep Medicine Testing Guidelines included in the CPT codebook in 2012.

On April 27, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule on Changes in Provider and Supplier Enrollment, Ordering and Referring, and Documentation Requirements; and Changes in Provider Agreements.

Medicare providers who do not successfully participate in the e-prescribing (eRx) program will be subject to a 1.5 percent reduction in their 2013 Medicare Part B payments. Act now to avoid this significant penalty.

In an April 18 press release, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported significant savings in the first year of the durable medical equipment (DME) competitive biding program.

In a recent Weekly Update article, we reported on the implementation of the sleep specialty code for CMS. The code will be available via the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) in May.

In a recent email from staff at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the AASM was notified that the specialty code for sleep medicine will be implemented in May.

At the February 2012 meeting of the CPT Editorial Panel the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a number of other specialty societies presented a proposal to add two new CPT codes for pediatric polysomnography and pediatric polysomnography with initiation of PAP.

In 2011, it was reported that approximately $28.8B in improper payments were issued across all Medicare Fee-For-Service programs (including Part A, Part B and DME). This is an error rate of 8.6 percent. In 2012, Medicare intends to bring this error rate down to 5.4 percent. It is imperative that all sleep centers implement accurate billing procedures to meet current requirements and reduce errors. To help educate members and sleep center staff on this important issue, the AASM is devoting a full day of its April 21–22 Intermediate Sleep Center Management Series to coding and billing topics including documentation, appeals, developing a compliance plan and more.