The Office for Civil Rights under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the agency responsible for enforcing the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Readers will remember that the HIPAA Privacy Rule came into effect in …
HIPAA was passed in 1996 with the goal of providing needed reforms in health care. The act had three primary objectives, the first being to make sure people could keep their health insurance when they were between jobs. Up through …
As with many professions, the advent of computers started what is continuing to shape the medical billing and coding industry. Technology has and will continue to change medical billing and coding, the skills associated with these professions, and the labor …
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released its Medicare Part B payment data for 2012. This shows how much doctors billed the program for medical services provided to their patients, and consequently, the most lucrative areas for …
The American Medical Association (AMA) is one of the most influential organizations in the health care industry, and the largest organization of physicians and medical students in the United States. According to its mission statement, the AMA’s chief goal is …
In a controversial move for the medical billing and coding profession, the president signed a bill into law that would delay the implementation of the ICD-10. This was no April fools joke. Known as the Protecting Access to Medicare Act …
When medical billing and coding professionals speak of the Office of Inspector General (OIG), it is usually in reference to a possible audit or a compliance program. Most likely it is also related to the Medicare and Medicaid programs or …
All billing and coding professionals will inevitably come across the term CPT, which refers to Current Procedural Terminology. CPT was and is developed by the American Medical Association (AMA) and is used today by all the major players in the …
The American Health Information Management Association, known by those in the medical billing and coding field as AHIMA (and also the subject of a previous article) is one of several prominent organizations which offers important certifications. Although these are not …
The American Health Information Management Association, known to most as AHIMA, is one of several important organizations in the medical billing and coding profession. The organization can trace its origins back to 1928. Then known as the Association of Record …