Category: SOS Blog

We are regularly surprised by the lack of training provided by practices and other organizations to new staff members when they come aboard. If the person they are replacing does not hang around to do training on our software, the new user is left to learn on their own. Even for an experienced behavioral health practice manager or billing specialist, starting a new job and jumping into a new software product without training can lead to under-use and even to misuse of the software tool with which they are provided.

Synergistic Office Solutions can provide training to new staff people for what we view as a reasonable fee. Since much of their time will be wasted hunting around for how to do their jobs without guidance, investing in training for them can be a wise tack for a practitioner to take.

I thought about this when I got a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notice last week indicating that updated ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes are now available on their website. Here is the notice.

2017 ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS Files Available The 2017 ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS code updates, including a complete list of code titles, are available on the 2017 ICD-10-CM and GEMs and 2017 ICD-10-PCS and GEMs  webpages. The posted files contain the complete versions of both ICD-10-CM (diagnoses) and ICD-10-PCS (procedures). 2017 General Equivalence Mappings (GEMs) will be posted in August 2016 Official Coding Guidelines and the Present on Admission (POA) Exempt List will be available soon

Updates of software, of code sets, of most anything, usually contain changes that the creators of the update consider important. If this were not so, they would not bother to create and notify users of the update.

After reading the CMS notice, I found myself thinking about new staff members in organizations that use HCPCS codes instead of CM codes. Some do not even know that they use a different code set than most organizations. How could they possibly be expected to know they need to attend to this update of codes if they do not even know which codes they use.

We here at SOS believe that the more information you and your staff have, the more easily and effectively you will be able to do your jobs. Please help your staff learn what they need to know. They will reward you by increasing your payer reimbursements!

Last week I was at a 10-day yoga training. Later this week, I will head out for a long-weekend holiday celebration. Vacations have become more important to me over time. They are times for me to recharge, rest and restore enthusiasm to my day-to-day life.

Research supports that vacations are important to your health, to your relationships and to your productivity. Some say we should all vacation at the same time to get the best effects. Other research supports taking shorter, more frequent vacations.

What purposes do vacations serve for you? Spending time with family? Entertaining children when they are out of school? Catching up on work around the house? Traveling to far-off places? Pursuing the adventure of a lifetime? Or is rest and recharging more for you?

Please share your comments below.

I was not sure what I was going to write about today. I am in the midst of preparing to leave for another yoga training and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Then I got an email newsletter from the Senior Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Church of the Larger Fellowship, of which I am a member. I decided that sharing her post with you would likely be more valuable than most of what I could write.

The Rev. Meg Riley is a particularly articulate individual whose newsletters I always appreciate. She is one of those rock solid people . . . the ones we all hope to have in our lives. As providers of behavioral health services, you may be one of those people to your clients.

As we try to make sense of or to explain away the violence and hatred demonstrated at Pulse on Sunday morning in Orlando, we may find ourselves Struggling for Words, just as Rev. Meg was.

May we all have peace in our lives and in our hearts. May we all experience love and share it with others. May we all find ways to let go of anger so as not to hurt others.

I don’t know about you, but my inbox has recently been inundated with newsletters and emails about data security—or rather, insecurity. While most of these have been aimed at healthcare providers, not many have been specific to behavioral healthcare.

Some folks used to believe that Protected Health Information (PHI) is only at risk and covered under HIPAA if you maintain it electronically. Now it is clear that your paper records are also at risk—and their loss by accident or by theft is a data breach by anyone’s definition. It seems that all healthcare information has become the hot acquisition for criminals everywhere, both cyber criminals and the low tech variety.

Recently, one of our SOS clients asked in our User Group whether other folks have cyber insurance. There were no replies. Take a look at some of these articles by IDExperts. They may convince you that the answer to that question about cyber insurance should be ‘of course!’

Please share your comments below.