Medicare Fee Schedule

Medicare Fee Schedule

Joyce Perrone

12/30/2006

There is an old saying - If you let others always do things FOR you,
eventually they'll do it TO you.
Compiling the Medicare fee schedule is pretty easy for someone with
basic excel skills to do. Like all things, if you don't want to do it
yourself, generally you do have to pay someone to do it.
We prefer to work on this ourselves, as we learn by doing. Being
intimate with your personalized fee schedule really alerts you as to
what the monetary value is for a device. We do ours in several steps.
First, someone savvy with the internet AND excel may pull down the
spreadsheet from the Medicare intermediary. This really is pretty easy
for someone with those skills. Most teenagers can do it at this point,
amazingly. Then it goes to our clinic office manager. She copies it
into our own personal company spreadsheet where we expand it to include
other major payers. Anyone in the company can access it. (I DO
recommend making it READ ONLY so no one accidentally changes it!) Prior
to having it on our server, we would print copies for all the
clinicians. They could easily see what each major payer reimbursed (or
did not).
She also adds a column and if we are bidding on a *new* contract, she
can input those numbers. I usually do the formulas to review the bigger
pictures and we can also see if the new contract is naughty or nice and
if we are putting ourselves into the meat grinder. At least if we do,
we did it with full knowledge. As of today, Dec 31, that sheet is almost
totally complete. We know exactly what the increases are from 06 to 07
code-by-code (Hint: it is NOT across the board!)

I'm sure everyone knows someone who knows excel who will help you out to
have a nice document for your practice. And people should be paid to do
the work. You may find someone who wants a volunteer pin from a
for-profit company, but try as I may, I have not found that person.
Heck, even my dogs want paid (will work for cookies) for doing what I
ask!

Joyce J Perrone
De La Torre O&P, Inc & PROMISE Consulting, Inc
300 Alpha Drive Pgh PA 15238
412-599-1112 Cell: 412-849-7750
 
 
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Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 18:54:15 EST
From: Gerardo Hernandez < <Email Address Redacted> >
Subject: Medicare Fee Schedules

Dear List Members:

If anyone is interested in compiling the Medicare Fee Schedules for
2007,
please let me know. I find it rediculous to have to pay someone for
them when
they are readily available on-line in various formats and can easily
adjusted
to fit anyones needs.

Thanks

Hernan Luna, LPO
Allied Orthopedics Inc.
Miami, FL