Medicare, NOT! Mediscrew, Yep......

Okay folks, Medicare in 2011 is going to eat Seniors and Healthcare clinics alive. Sadly, if these cuts go into effect, most clinics will be forced to STOP taking as many Medicare patients. Doctors will simply drop out "at will", while therapists (PT, OT, SLP) will be forced to stop seeing Medicare patients until legislation changes so they too can drop out "at will".

Congress, wake up and take a real hard look at the potential consequences of your actions. The punitive Medicare Cap will continue, but we don't have a figure yet. The Exceptions process for complicated patient diagnoses will stop, so once the Cap is reached you must either stop your care, pay out-of-pocket or convince your secondary insurer to pay. The physician's fee schedule will reimburse less. Paperwork requirements will increase due to the need for "data mining" in order to justify future reimbursement cuts. And the real "WINNER" here is the cascading reimbursement reductions that will virtually destroy healthcare as we know it...... essentially forcing 50% penalties on practitioners who dare spend more that 22 minutes performing any type of therapy on a patient.

Write Congress and CMS/Medicare now........ before it is too late and discourage other insurers from following the Medicare path. Thanks.

Mentoring private practitioners--mission, passion or exploitation?

Sadly I have been receiving input from physical therapists and other practitioners interested in attempting private practice saying that they are being told it would cost ~$500 per hour (minimum) to meet with a therapist to discuss private practice. Seriously, we don't have to give away all of our hard earned company or trade secrets, but shouldn't we mentor these folks a bit as part of our passion or mission for making this a sustainable profession?? Yes, I know there are folks who try to bleed us dry with information, but our professional responsibility is to guide them towards educational options regarding business coaching, professional seminars, accountant and lawyer selections, electronic records, etc.

I would hate for us to be short sighted and fail to nurture newcomers to the healthcare field, and worse yet, hate to see a financial exploitation of newcomers be a means to our end.

Large Group health coverage through trade and professional associations

We all should be able to have affordable "Group" health insurance coverage through our professional associations (AMA, APTA,ASHA, AOTA......) , Costco, Chamber of Commerce, trade associations, or through other well-formed groups and agencies. Don't settle for "insurance marts" that simply offer individual coverage or small group coverage; request to become part of a large GROUP. This way the group coverage is affordable, not as punitive and is portable. Allowing folks to pursue other career opportunities without having to be tethered to large employers. This paradigm shift will take time, but through writing, faxing, phoning, emailing and personal visits this insurance dilemma can begin to improve. Encourage your special interest group to do the RIGHT thing!!!

have to curb fraud/abuse before expanding healthcare

While many healthcare providers are fair minded, they are possibly committing fraud through inappropriate billing and up coding. Throwing more government or private dollars at a system riddled with fraud and abuse makes NO sense. We MUST educate providers and do drop-in clinic audits to insure proper coding and billing is being done. I am seeing that the insurance dollar and medicare dollar is shrinking, so office administrators are getting more and more creative with "up coding" or mis-coding the actual service being rendered. I challenge the professional organizations of medical providers and professional educational programs to truly educate students and practitioners about the appropriate way to bill and code. Ignorance is REALLY NO EXCUSE!