December 28, 2020
By Chuck Buck The Year That Was 2020
A former college classmate turned-NBC-TV national news correspondent once told me that he made a career choice—to report the news rather than read the news. Here at RACmonitor we’ve been reporting a considerable amount of news this year with our weekly news and information service plus nearly 60 special news…
By Mark Spivey
Comments are being sought now. With two COVID-19 vaccines now being distributed nationwide and more on the way, in addition to what are sure to be forthcoming enhancements in treatment of the virus, federal officials have issued an interim final rule with comment period establishing add-on payments for such measures.…
December 17, 2020
By John Zelem, MD Rationing Patient Care in a Pandemic
Physicians in general are not trained to think this way, but may be forced to do so in the very near future. During the early part of this month, the U.S. has been averaging nearly 200,000 new cases each day, a 15-percent increase from the average two weeks prior. Whether…
December 15, 2020
By Mark Spivey COVID Vaccines Begin Rollout as Medicare Announces Coverage
Moderna’s vaccine is expected to be shipped to providers nationwide, on the heels of Pfizer’s. A reeling nation couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 16 and older last week…
December 10, 2020
By Ellen Fink-Samnick MSW, ACSW, LCSW, CCM, CRP COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation and the Social Vulnerability Index
As the nation readies itself for the vaccine, distribution remains a challenge. COVID-19 has been with us for almost a year. There is light at the end of the tunnel, through vaccinations anticipated to start over the next month. But how to accomplish this, and more vitally, to whom the…
November 19, 2020
By Marvin D Mitchell, RN, BSN, MBA CoP Compliance in the Face of COVID 19: No Time to Cut Corners: Part 2
Now more than ever it’s no time to cut corners. EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is an expansion of the original piece, “CoP Compliance in the Face of COVID-19: No Time to Cut Corners,” originally published April 1, 2020. Recent articles by Marie Stinebuck, Edward Hu, MD, and Stefani Daniels touch…
November 19, 2020
By Matthew Albright Moving Forward with a Plan for Covid
President-Elect Joe Biden forms covid10 task force. President-Elect Joe Biden says getting COVID-19 under control is his administration’s first priority. This past week, Biden named a COVID-19 task force and a broader COVID transition team. The board’s three co-chairs are Marcella Nunez-Smith, a physician and researcher at Yale; Vivek Murthy,…
November 12, 2020
By Matthew Albright 2020: The only Certainty is Uncertainty
Expect to see legislation on bipartisan issues, such as drug pricing and balance billing. The Associated Press and broadcast networks announced on Saturday that former Vice President Joe Biden has won the 2020 presidential election. The Trump campaign and Republican groups have initiated a number of election-related lawsuits across the…
November 12, 2020
By Ellen Fink-Samnick MSW, ACSW, LCSW, CCM, CRP Unemployment, COVID-19, and Testing Claims
America’s new normal. Unemployed, uninsured, unbelievable! The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that 12.6 million Americans are on unemployment rosters around the country; 32.5 percent of the adult population has been jobless for over five months. Of those who are jobless, many remain uninsured. What happens when these individuals…
November 5, 2020
By Knicole C. Emanuel Esq. The Definition of Medical Necessity in the Era of COVID
Sometimes, in an audit, it comes down to the definition of “medical necessity.” While the coronavirus pandemic is horrible already, it seems to be getting worse. But COVID has forced slight, positive changes in the telehealth arena – and, perhaps, in the widening of the ambiguous definition of “medical necessity”…