Chiropractic and ObamaCare; End Payment Headaches; New GX Modifier

1. 397 Reasons to Use a 2010 ChiroCode DeskBook Daily - With Obama Health Reform now you really need it!

2. 7 Ways to End Payment Headaches!

3. Nutritional Balancing 

4. The New GX Modifier and how it applies to Chiropractic 

5. What Changes With Obama Health Reform?

6. ChiroCode, Obama Health Reform and Chiropractic - Where do we go from here?
 

1. 397 Reasons to Use a 2010 ChiroCode DeskBook Daily  - With Obama Health Reform now you really need it!    

• 8 Books in 1 Saves Time and Money
• 25 Tips for Submitting Error-Free Claims (p. A-13) 
• 5 Ways to Reduce Chiropractic Billing Denials (p. C-7) 
• The Single Most Common Error in E/M Coding (p. C-7) 
• 5 Step Medicare Part B Appeals Process (p. C-13) 
• 6 Step Checklist for Submitting a Redetermination (p. C-15)
• 10 Simple Ways to Avoid a Medicare Audit (p. D-36)
• 17 Point HIPAA Privacy To-Do List (p. D-10)
• 13 Point HIPAA Security To-Do List (p. D-13)
• 4 Critical Steps to Comply with the FTC's Red Flag Rule (p. D-19)
• 5 Considerations: Responding to a Request for Records (p. D-24)
• How to Create Your Own Audit Protection Shield (p. D-31)
• What to Do When a Payer Audits You (p. D-37)
• 4 Additional Tactics to Fight Audits (p. D-39)
• 15 Tips to Audit Protect Your Practice (p. D-40)
• 35 Post-Payment Audit Triggers to Watch Out For (p. D-43)
• 22 Critical Forms to Use in Your Practice
• 220 New and Revised Codes for 2010

Get the most from your ChiroCode DeskBook. Order your copy today at www.chirocode.com

2. 7 Ways to End Payment Headaches!

Presented by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA of The Strategic Chiropractor 

ChiroCode Webinar: Thursday, March 25, 2010
Time: 4 pm Eastern, 3 pm Central, 2 pm Mountain, 1 pm Pacific   

Learn how to fix common payment hassles and get paid for what you do, on time - every time!

Join Dr. Tom Necela of The Strategic Chiropractor to learn how to "work SMARTER, not harder" in the critical area of maximizing collections and minimizing the headaches that literally have you working for pennies on the dollar. 

In this presentation, Dr. Necela will show you how to create systems that eliminate missed payments and common front desk foul ups.  You will also learn proactive techniques that prevent payment and collection problems BEFORE they happen. Finally, when all else fails, learn effective strategies to fight back and demand correct payment from insurance companies who are dragging their feet, incorrectly processing your claims and holding your hard earned money hostage!  

Click here to reserve your seat today: https://www.chirocode.com/webinars 

3. Nutritional Balancing

Presented by Lawrence Wilson, MD

ChiroCode Webinar: Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Time: 4 pm Eastern, 3 pm Central, 2 pm Mountain, 1 pm Pacific   

The secret of nutritional balancing is the way in which several components are combined for each individual to balance and strengthen the body and mind.  These include a diet for one's metabolic type, the proper drinking water, a healthful lifestyle, nutritional supplements used in a unique way, detoxification with infrared saunas and colon cleansing, and a specific meditation-observation exercise.

Nutritional balancing science:

    * Is a new science of healing that helps to gently detoxify and restore the body and mind to its fullest potential.
    * Is as effective for healing most mental and emotional disorders as it is for many physical ones.
    * Removes all toxic metals and hundreds of toxic chemicals as well.
    * Uses only natural substances and natural healing methods.
    * Removes deep-seated, latent and sub-clinical conditions.
    * Is predictive, preventive, safe and cost-effective.
    * A whole systems and thoroughly holistic approach to health care.

Nutritional balancing is a synthesis and unique application of principles from many healing sciences, including:

    * Nutritional sciences
    * Naturopathy
    * Western medicine
    * Cybernetics and systems theory
    * The stress theory of disease
    * Homeopathy and chiropractic principles
    * Oriental sciences such as macrobiotics

Click here to reserve your seat today: https://www.chirocode.com/spotlights

4. The New GX Modifier and how it applies to Chiropractic

Presented by Dr. Ron Short

ChiroCode Webinar: Thursday, April 8, 2010
Time: 4 pm Eastern, 3 pm Central, 2 pm Mountain, 1 pm Pacific

Medicare has introduced a new GX modifier that will be effective on April 5. Medicare has developed very specific protocols for the use of this modifier.  Dr. Ron Short will show you how and when to properly use this new modifier and what it will mean to you and your practice.

Click here to reserve your seat today: https://www.chirocode.com/webinars

 5. What Changes With Obama Health Reform?    

Now that the bill has been signed, the world of the Chiropractor waits for the sound of footfall-the other shoe dropping. How our industry is expected to figure out what has happened to it as the result of 2700 late night pages that even the legislators who passed it have not read is beyond us-we are children of a simpler era when government news was boring beyond belief, and the idea of crowding around a computer to learn what is happening next seems to us surreal. Still, after arm-twisting and deal making, the bill is the law. Now what?

Bills H.R. 3590 -- the Senate Health Care Reform Bill -- and H.R. 4872 -- the Reconciliation Act of 2010 -plow the road for final enactment of the most sweeping reform of the U.S. health care system since 1965, when Medicare was created. Most of the really big stuff will not take effect until 2014, but many smaller changes will be upon us sooner. So far, what we have seen is not too painful. But we still have a lot to learn about the consequences, intended or otherwise, of such sweeping legislation.

Here are some of them:  

Small Business tax credits - Chiropractors are business people, and as such they often have employees, and it is usually hard and costly to buy them health insurance (the shoemakers kids go barefoot). Beginning this year, the bill offers tax credits to help small businesses provide their employees with health insurance. Initial credits cover up to 35 percent of the total employee premium payments. In 2014, that jumps to 50 percent of premiums.

Medicare Preventive Care without co-pays -- January 1, 2011, co-payments for Medicare-covered preventative services will be eliminated. Preventative services will be also exempted from deductibles. This may mean more Medicare money is available for chiropractic care-if it can be determined what precisely is "preventive care", and whether or not chiropractors can provide it..  

Early Retirees Re-Insurance -- Many patients are employees that have been offered early retirement. They are too young to slow down, too old to start over, and they are often stuck without affordable insurance. Effective 90 days after bill enactment, a temporary re-insurance program helps offset the costs related to health benefits for this segment of the population. (Of course, we have to educate the patients to this option, and then court this group to our offices.)  

Help for the un-insurable - If an employee goes without insurance for too long a time, then insurance plans can slap on a whole panel of exclusions due to pre-existing conditions. Previously, the way around this has been to carefully capture "open enrollments", which occur immediately upon hiring and then disappear until the next open enrollment period. No more. Ninety days after the bill passes, a special pool of high-risk insurance will be available from which no one can be excluded. Premiums, TBD, of course, but there are times when any insurance is better than none. Same for kids who are un-insurable, only the plan takes six months to take effect.  

Also within six months after the bill fires up, no one can be dropped from an insurance plan when or because they get sick-and need it the most. Also, no more need to marry off a daughter just because she is too old for coverage under your own insurance. From six months after the bill starts, kids can stay on the rolls until they are 26. Finally, insurance plans can no longer cap their plan pay-outs with a lifetime limit.   Funding, Funding, Funding   All of the above merely prolong the love-hate relationship most chiropractors have with insurers. However, the new bill also authorizes major funding for "community health centers". Some predict that they will be able to double patient volume over the next five years. Also, there is a lot of money available to train the next generation of doctors and nurses.. Can candidate chiropractors get in on this training? Not certain about that yet-please stand by.  

Appeals Are No Longer A Choice, But Mandates and Compliance For All. We will go into this in more depth at our May 8th, 2010 Seminar and in our ChiroCode Hot Topics Newsletter April 2010.  Also watch for additional news on www.chirocode..com   

So, is there good news after all in the ObamaCare bills, or have chiropractors been put out to pasture? We will keep you updated as we continue to keep you informed as soon as facts become available and as facts and reality continue to morph this year. In the meantime, keep listening for that other shoe to drop.

6. ChiroCode, Obama Health Reform and Chiropractic - Where do we go from here?

Seminar May 8^th weekend in Salt Lake City,  Utah - You don't want to miss this one.  Seminar Registration details will be available in next weeks ChiroCode Alert and at ChiroCode.com on Monday March 29^th, 2010.