Tag Archive: Ambulance

Transport/EMS services can change care models to help meet the Triple Aim

While it is well known that good nutrition plays a significant role in our overall wellbeing, the impact of our diet tends to fall behind issues like exercise, fatigue, and exposure to carcinogens when we discuss the health risks related to performance and safety in Fire and EMS. It is time for a closer look into what…

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Last week, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced proposed changes to how it reimburses home health agencies. Specifically, CMS will now allow home health providers to report the costs of remote monitoring. Like many initiatives happening at the local, state and national levels, this move by CMS appears to recognize and support…

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City and county officials, EMS agency directors and fire chiefs who struggle to balance budgets may want to analyze the efficacy of their EMS billing operations to recover additional revenue.

If the EMS profession truly wants to prioritize safety, we must address distracted driving and all the ways we currently make it worse By Meg Chandler and J. Todd Sheridan Motor vehicle collisions continue to pose a significant risk to EMS providers and our patients. Some agencies have responded to this risk by addressing factors…

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It’s time for EMS leaders and educators to take compliance training as seriously as clinical training – caregivers’ careers and patients’ lives depend on it By Anthony Minge It seems like you can’t go a day lately without seeing a report or article related to compliance issues in health care. The statutes, guidelines, regulations and…

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Rarely does a week go by without another news report about an ambulance service or hospital under investigation by the federal government for fraud or abuse related to billing for transport services. Whether willful or unintentional, negligence that results in the billing of transport services at inappropriate levels is leaving many hospital-operated ambulance services at risk. And the scrutiny is only increasing.

Increased attention on ambulance use demonstrates the need for compliance plans to include emergency and non-emergency ambulance operations. The HHS OIG has published voluntary compliance program guidance for ambulance suppliers. Ambulance billing should reflect the care provided by the EMS personnel, not the hospital diagnosis of the patient. Training for billing personnel and EMS providers on documentation and billing for ambulance services is often inadequate. Ambulance suppliers should conduct regular claims reviews to ensure problems are identified and corrected prior to an audit.