Things Start-up Practices should Know about Healthcare in 2015

The healthcare sector is going to see some changes in 2015. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have proposed changes in the medical rates for doctors and have proposed to raise the Medicare outpatient payments to hospitals. CMS has proposed a few more changes as discussed below.

There is a chance that insurance premiums might increase in 2015. However, some experts believe that these premiums will not see a volatile spike but a controlled increase.

Changes to be Kept in Mind

Being a start-up there are several factors that need to be considered mindfully. Here are a few snippets of information about the healthcare sector and what can be expected in 2015:

• By the mid of 2015 all the ten regional health information exchanges in the state of New York are expected to be connected to each other, which will allow for a seamless transfer of electronic health records (EHRs) online
• Due to the rise in deductible plans, the payment collection will be crucial
• The Meaningful Use (MU) deadline was October 01, 2014 which has already passed And those who have not implemented an EHR system will face government penalties in 2015
• There could be a rise in the number of Medicaid patients that can pose a challenge for the healthcare providers. According to a survey by Payer View, it takes 46 days to receive Medicaid insurance versus 27 days for non-Medicaid insurance. It also has a higher denial rate of 18% compared to just seven percent of Medicare payers
• Adapt to the practice of having a medical network rather than having a private practice. Previously medical graduate freshmen would start their own practices but now a group of doctors pool in their resources and work together; which makes them more efficient
• The Open Payment program might get eliminated; this required the drug and device companies to disclose their payments to physicians. The reversal was proposed in the Physician Fee Schedule for 2015

From the points above we can understand that changes are going to happen in 2015. It would do the start-ups a world of good if they kept them in mind. There could be some who might have just begun their practice and there could be some who are yet to begin. In either of the case these aspects will help them.

One of the points mentioned is payment collection. For a start-up it would be disastrous if they have to keep on writing off payment collections as bad debts. MedicalBillersandCoders.com can help out the new physicians here. The new physicians then can just worry about the other aspects of their business and handover the payment collections work to MBC and be rest assured of higher and faster returns.

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Published By - Medical Billers and Coders
Published Date - Dec-12-2014 Back