CMS Archives | WebPT

December 4, 2019
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Founder Letter: Reconsidering MIPS: Should PTs Participate in 2020?

Over the past year or so, the idea of MIPS participation has undergone an enormous transformation in the minds of rehab therapists. When the program was first introduced, we were optimistic about participation, and we heralded its arrival as an opportunity for therapists to prove their worth to CMS.

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December 4, 2019
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Can PTAs Do Progress Notes? (And Other PTA and OTA Questions)

Recently, we’ve received a whole lot of questions about what physical therapist assistants (PTAs) and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs) can and cannot do in practice—likely because many practice owners are re-evaluating staff roles and clinic operations in preparation of the Medicare reimbursement reduction for assistant-provided services, which takes effect in 2022.

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November 29, 2019
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OTA and PTA Supervision: 6 Real-Life Scenarios

With the upcoming payment changes for PTAs and OTAs, we’ve received a lot of questions regarding supervision requirements for therapy assistants in the outpatient setting. So, we thought our readers would benefit from some examples of common, real-world scenarios the type of supervision each one requires.

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November 11, 2019
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5 Strategies for Training Your Clinic Staff on Compliance

Human error is one of the biggest compliance and security threats to any organization—especially organizations in health care. That’s why setting expectations for your staff—and providing continual healthcare compliance training and education opportunities—is so important.

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November 7, 2019
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The 2020 Final Rule: Health Care’s Just Desserts

Okay, so the title of this article might be a little misleading; the final rule isn’t health care’s just desserts. It’s actually really great that CMS is always trying to improve one of our country’s most important safety nets—even though its methods of doing so are divisive, to say the least.

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November 6, 2019
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Founder Letter: Is the 8% Payment Cut the Wake-Up Call Rehab Therapists Need?

How familiar are you with the Medicare guidelines for physical therapy documentation? What about for occupational therapy documentation? If you’re a PT or OT—and you’re anything less than 100% confident in your knowledge of the Medicare documentation rules that apply to your specialty—then you’ve come to the right place.

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October 31, 2019
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How to Deal with Medicare as a Secondary Insurance

Some things are just better together, like peanut butter and jelly or milk and cookies. And for Medicare patients with other health insurance providers, few things are better than when Medicare and their private payers work together cooperatively.

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October 24, 2019
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5 Times a Medicare Patient Can’t Pay Cash

With declining reimbursements—and ever-increasing documentation and reporting requirements—it’s no wonder so many rehab therapists are stepping out of contracts with third-party payers to pursue a cash-pay business model.

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October 17, 2019
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Common Questions from Our Medicare Compliance Webinar

During this month’s webinar, compliance experts Heidi Jannenga, PT, DPT, ATC, WebPT Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer, and Veda Collmer, JD, OTR, WebPT’s Chief Compliance Officer, discussed strategies for contending with compliance chaos and Medicare mayhem.

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October 16, 2019
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5 Examples of When to Use the New PTA and OTA Modifiers

It’s the season of spooks—and uncanny thrills and chills (like dancing skeletons and pumpkin people) are hiding around every corner. But ghostly wails, gnarled trees, and creaky houses aren’t the only eerie sentinels of the season.

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