Now Hiring
MedSpring is a new kind of Urgent Care that puts patient care and satisfaction fi rst!
With six state-of-the-art centers in Austin and fi ve in Houston, MedSpring is committed to patient care and customer service. We offer our Physicians a true work-life balance with three 12-hour shifts per week and no after-hours calls. Plus, MedSpring handles all of the staffi ng, paperwork, technology and insurance headaches.
We offer : • Market competitive salary • Performance bonuses • Malpractice insurance
MedSpring provides a generous benefi ts package that includes health, dental, and vision, long/short-term disability, 401k matching, licensure, DPS, DEA and CME reimbursement.
Call 512-270-4429 or email your CV to
physician.recruiting@
medspring.com to discuss the opportunity to be part of a talented, high-performing team!
Please stop by and visit with us
at booth 424 on May 2nd and 3rd at the Texas Medical Association in Ft. Worth.
32 TEXAS MEDICINE March 2014
Hiring_Ad.indd 1 2/7/14 12:37 PM
“The CMS recognizes the frustration during the transition. Since then, we’ve routinely held monthly face-to-face meetings with Novitas senior manage- ment to stay apprised of their progress in overcoming the setbacks they had during the transition period,” officials said. “Yes, improvement in a contrac- tor’s performance is a fair expectation for the provider community. We are very active in monitoring Novitas’ functions and performance on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis … through ongoing meet- ings, daily/weekly reports, and periodic site visits.”
As with all Medicare carriers, CMS says, Novitas was due for a formal evalu- ation of its performance. The one-year contracts are not automatically renewed. At press time, though, officials anticipat- ed Novitas was here to stay for at least the next year.
more time to negotiate bipartisan legisla- tion to permanently repeal and replace the current system. (See “SGR Death Throes?” September 2013 Texas Medicine, pages 33–37.) On the other hand, the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) called the new payment policy for chronic care management services a “milestone” that “demonstrates Medi- care’s recognition of the importance of care that occurs outside of a face-to-face visit for a wide range of beneficiaries.” CMS Principal Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum noted that “health care is changing, and part of delivery system reform is recognizing this and making sure payment systems account for these changes. We believe that successful ef- forts to improve chronic care manage- ment for these patients could improve the quality of care while simultaneously decreasing costs through reductions in hospitalizations, use of post-acute care services, and emergency department visits.”
Medicare to pay for chronic care management in 2015
Beginning in 2015, Medicare will pay for monthly chronic care management ser- vices, a move that Texas Medical Asso- ciation officials say finally recognizes the work and resources primary care physi- cians already expend on a regular basis to coordinate care for patients with com- plex, time-consuming conditions. The policy was the result of a multiyear ef- fort by the American Medical Association and national specialty medical societies. The announcement came with the re- lease of the final Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2014. The good news was tempered, however, by the fact that the same schedule threatens to cut physician Medicare payments by more than 20 per- cent if Congress fails to fix the dysfunc- tional Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula that does not reflect the true cost of care. A 2014 federal budget deal included a three-month stopgap to pre- vent those cuts from taking effect on Jan. 1 and give House and Senate committees
Under CMS’ plan, patients must have two or more complex chronic conditions. Those conditions must be expected to last at least 12 months or until the death of the patient and to place the patient at significant risk of death, acute exacerba- tion or decompensation, or functional decline. An American Medical Associa- tion analysis estimates that physicians could earn $82 per patient per month based on 2013 Medicare rates, although CMS has yet to finalize coding require- ments and payment amounts for the services. TMA officials say the development is good news. But they also want to see the change implemented in a hassle-free way after many doctors experienced bill- ing and payment difficulties with a simi- lar policy Medicare put in place in 2013 to pay for transitional care management services. The new chronic care payments expand on the transitional care pay- ments, which recognize the work doctors do to transition patients from an inpa- tient facility to the community. But as TMA’s Payment Advocacy De- partment has documented, last year’s implementation of the transitional care policy caused a number of headaches
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