PECOS Database Audit Enhanced to include NPI Audit

The Rock-Pond PECOS Database audit has been extended to include audits for invalid NPI numbers.  In addition to reviewing the batch physician file against the PECOS registration file, Rock-Pond now reviews every NPI number against the master NPI file to determine if the NPI number is valid. 

Once the invalid NPI numbers are identified, use the FREE NPI / Physician lookup available from Rock-Pond to find the correct NPI number and update your physician file. 

We are excited to leverage our commitment to keep the NPI and PECOS databases current for our PECOS Database Audit customers, to provide a FREE and useful service for the home health care industry.  Although there are other places you can look up NPI numbers, most of them do not include PECOS registration information at the same time. 

Our goal is to simplify the process of complying with Medicare regulations, reduce or eliminate unnecessary denials and thereby help to improve the profitability and quality of care provided by our customers.

Rock-Pond launches FREE NPI / PECOS Search feature

Healthcare providers who have the need to lookup physician NPI information, including the current status of PECOS registration can do so from the Rock-Pond Solutions website for FREE. 

Rather than having to go to multiple websites to get the information or go through the technical process of downloading files that are constantly updated by CMS, anyone can simply look this information up from our NPI / PECOS Search page (available from the drop-down Solutions menu).  Physician information be found by providing the NPI number, first name, last name, city or state information.  ‘*’ can be used as a wildcard to find physicians when you are not sure how their name is spelled. 

This FREE service compliments our PECOS database audit service which allows a provider to batch audit their entire physician database at one.  This service is available for a nominal charge of $600 and includes unlimited batch audits for a year.  This will be plenty of time for providers to get their files in order by the compliance deadline.  Rock-Pond recommends you purchase a PECOS database audit service to see exactly how many of the physicians referring you Medicare patients are not registered in PECOS, put the process in place to contact and follow up on these physicians and modify your new patient intake process to validate the NPI and PECOS information for all your patients using the FREE Rock-Pond Solutions Search feature.

Featured Artist – Bill C. Ray

PECOS Database Audit Service a Huge Success

Rock-Pond Solutions added a PECOS database audit service to assist home infusion and DME providers determine their readiness for the CMS requirement that all ordering and referring physicians related to a Medicare claim be registered in the CMS PECOS database.  Although the deadline to be fully compliant was extended from the July 6, 2010 date, the service has proven extremely useful to those who have gone through the audit. 

According to one customer who utilized the service, “The real challenge here is being able to identify the physicians that are not registered who are associated with active patients.  Over time our physician file has grown to thousands of physicians and the Rock-Pond audit service enabled us to focus on the unregistered physicians that were involved with active Medicare patients.  We know our exposure, have adjusted our intake process to include PECOS registration verification and billing notification and we are ready when CMS decides to enforce compliance.” 

One customer who had us process their file today had the following stats.  We turned the file around in less than 10 minutes.  It doesn’t matter how cheap your clerical staff is, you can’t beat the price to quickly identify your exposure like this.  They had:

• 4,463 physicians
• 1,131 that were not in the PECOS database
• 3,332 that found a match in PECOS
• Of the 1,131 that were not there, it told them that only 30 had current active patients on census
• The report provides a drill-down “view patient” feature to quickly identify which ones have Medicare insurance
• Of the 3,332 that a match was found, 1,445 had differences in the first name and 192 had differences in the last name.

They have everything they need to put together a plan so when Medicare decides to enforce compliance, they are ready.  They went “from thousands of physicians, where do we start, I hope we are doing ok” to “we know exactly where we are and we can get this done” within 10 minutes.  We will do another batch comparison for them for free when compliance goes into effect. 

The  PECOS database audit service is a Rock-Pond Solution worth using whether you think you are in compliance or know you are not. It will check the name and PECOS status of ALL of your physicians at one time and tell you exactly where you stand.  Your results are delivered in an easy to use Excel Spreadsheet.

Featured Artist – Deborah Allen

Surviving and Thriving in Healthcare

Rock-Pond’s president, Pete Tanguay, presented the keynote address at the Fastrack User Conference in Melville New York on Thursday May 28, 2010.  About 150 Fastrack users across all continuums of home health care attended and engaged in roundtable sessions and networking events. 

The primary message given was that with all of the technology available today and with the massive amounts of data available to generate valuable information, the key to surviving and thriving in health care is not simple having technology and software functionality, but to be able to prioritize and effectively implement this technology and software functionality to bring business value.  Organizations must have a strategic information plan that is rooted in the business goals of the company and carried down to the day to day processes.  Effective implementation of technology requires personnel across the organization to take the initiative to learn how their function fits within the overall business.  We must break down the walls between the clinical, reimbursement and back end accounting functions of our home health care company and leverage the technology and data that is available to drive the business. 

Specific data integration and data reporting case studies along with lessons learned were presented.  To preview the Powerpoint Presentation, click on the image below.

Rock-Pond to host Customer appreciation event at NHIA

Are you attending the NHIA Annual Conference in Dallas?  If so, we hope you will join us for an evening of appreciation and networking at the Cru Wine Bar in the West Village area of Dallas, about 5 minutes from the conference.

Come by and see us in booth #726 in the exhibit hall on Monday night or Tuesday and we’ll show you all of the cool new things we’ve been working on.  Then plan to join us for a special evening with our customers and friends on Tuesday night.  I’ve been attending NHIA conferences every year since NHIA began in the early 90′s and so it is always somewhat of a cross between a family/college reunion and a giant think tank.  Bring your ideas and friends and we’ll dream up the next big thing over a glass of wine.

CLICK HERE for complete information and complete the RSVP form.  We’ll see you there.

Can’t wait to Crú with You.

Pete Tanguay, President
Rock-Pond Solutions
501-450-6446

www.rock-pond.com/cru

Rock-Pond Signs Agreement with NHIA to support DATA Initiative

Change in health care is happening rapidly.  Now, more than ever, the home infusion industry must come together to communicate the value of home infusion and lobby for it’s place in the future of health care in America.  The story simply can not be told or the case made with out data.  One of the top priorities of the National Home Infusion Association in 2010 is to establish a base data initiative that will provide the data needed to take the case for home infusion to Washington.  And this is just the beginning.  Data will be needed to support pay-for-performance initiatives when they are implemented in non-acute care settings and to support best clinical practices on an industy-wide basis.

Rock-Pond Solutions has signed a mutual agreement of understanding where Rock-Pond will provide FREE tools to any home infusion provider to mine their data source to extract and deliver the data requested to NHIA.  NHIA will promote this as the tool of choice to gather the data in a standardized and consistent manner.

Click here for more information.

10 Microsoft Predictions for 2010

Technology developed by leading hardware and software companies is pushed out to the end users through what is known as “the channel”.  Channel vendors (Value added Resellers and Value added Distributors) are critical to a product reaching critical mass.  As end users, we think we always want to be using the best technology available.  That’s not always so.  What we really want are solutions that will meet our business needs, be easily understood by our staff as it makes them more productive, won’t “break the bank” and most importantly, solutions that are going to keep up and be here tomorrow.

I started working with computers back when they were in special temperature controlled rooms with raised floors and a hard drive was larger than an industrial washing machine.  Inside the “machine room” was a special office for our IBM CE (Certified Engineer).  Although “third-party vendors” could demonstrate superior technology, the old adage that “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” kept the CE comfortable in his little office. 

When I owned a home infusion software company and would try to get our team to think like a “big company” I would tell them, “If it is good enough for Microsoft, it’s good enough for us”.  It’s not that I thought everything Microsoft did was superior (in fact it is often inferior).  Rather, I knew that Microsoft was going to be around and there is a lot our little company could learn from them.  They were a company we could use as a cornerstone to ours. 

The 2010 prediction season is upon us as people reflect on the year gone by and do their best to predict what will be important for the year ahead.  From a technology perspective, a good place to listen and learn from are the technology channel vendors.  A recent slide show on a site for technology channel vendors gives their Top 10 Microsoft Predictions for 2010.  I’d recommend this as a quick read to stir your thoughts on your 2010 technology plan.  You’ll see some things familiar and probably read about some products that are new to you.  I make a practice of reading predictions from as many sources as I can at the end of the year and then take some time to develop our technology plan for 2010.  At Rock-Pond we believe that we are at one of those exciting times where significant technologies are maturing and the next few years are going to be very exciting.  This is not always the case, but it is as 2009 comes to a close. 

A/R Adjustments – made EASY

It’s bad enough that you have to adjust off accounts receivable. This is money that you have booked as revenue and counted on receiving. In most home infusion companies the adjustment process is a manual process of filling out an adjustment request form, getting it approved by a manager, re-looking up the invoice and applying this adjustment. The end result is a lot of errors, overstated A/R, wasted time by collectors calling on invoices that should have been adjusted, etc.

Rock-Pond Solutions worked with one of our customers to create a report that streamlined the process whereby the collector or cash posting clerk would make the adjustment according to predefined procedures. The manager runs the Detailed Adjustments with Invoice Status report each day to review the adjustments from the prior day and either approve or reverse them with notes in the system to the collector. The results included time savings, improved accuracy, elimination of paper, improvement of audit trails in the system and a much better understanding of why A/R was being adjusted in the first place so it could be prevented. If you are using the CPR+ software and are not using this report – call us right now and we’ll show you what it looks like with YOUR DATA.  If you are using HomecareNET or Ascend, call us and we’ll write this report for your software.  No matter what you are using, you need this adjustment report and it doesn’t come with your software.

Rock-Pond Connect Released!

After 9 years in business, Rock-Pond Solutions has released its first internally developed application.  And we are giving it away for FREE to all of our customers.  Rock-Pond Connect is a server based application that allows us to automatically transfer files to our customers as soon as they are available.Customers install and schedule the application to update based on a desired schedule and they never have to worry about having out of date report templates or other important files they need from Rock-Pond Solutions.

In addition to the obvious time saving advantages this provides to our customers today, Rock-Pond Connect establishes some important infrastructure for some exciting products to be released by Rock-Pond in 2010.

Tanguay to Speak at NHIA 2010

Rock-Pond’s president, Pete Tanguay, will present “Understanding and Reducing the Costs of Billing and Getting Paid” on April 13 at the 2010 NHIA Annual Conference in Dallas, TX. Originally Pete was asked by the NHIA educational committee on cost effective use of technology in a home infusion department.  He pointed out that technology is only as good as the problem it solves and understanding and reducing reimbursement costs is very high on the priority list of home infusion providers.

The preliminary course outline is as follows:  “The reimbursement process begins with a patient referral and ends with payment for services, or at least this is the plan. There are specific costs associated with this process and additional costs incurred when you don’t do each area well. This program will present a comprehensive reimbursement model along with specific metrics and recommendations to follow in order to minimize the cost and time it takes to get paid for services. It will emphasize the advantage of using technology to measure and streamline your reimbursement process.The reimbursement process begins with a patient referral and ends with payment for services, or at least this is the plan. There are specific costs associated with this process and additional costs incurred when you don’t do each area well. This program will present a comprehensive reimbursement model along with specific metrics and recommendations to follow in order to minimize the cost and time it takes to get paid for services. It will emphasize the advantage of using technology to measure and streamline your reimbursement process.”

Rock-Pond Solutions will also be exhibiting at the conference.

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