But has no impact on acupuncture providers unless you are billing Medicare Part B under medical provider for chronic low back pain. Sequestration reductions are back and will reduce Medicare payments by 1% for dates of service from April through June. The 2% reduction will resume for services on July Read more…
Aetna is increasing access and benefits for their plans in 2022 and has published the following. Aetna ® will add acupuncture as a standard benefit in new and renewing commercial health plans in 2022 as part of our goal to increase access to complementary health treatments. Providing this coverage gives you Read more…
BUSINESSES The Supreme Court struck down the OSHA established vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees. This ruling eliminates this specific requirement. HEALTHCARE WORKERS Although the Supreme Court upheld the mandate for healthcare workers, HHS narrowly defined those to which the mandate applied. The HHS definition is narrow Read more…
Medicare has now released the fee schedule 2022 that adheres to the recent Congressional change made in S.610. Acupuncture rates have been increased about 7-8% from 2021 which means an increase for VA claims and plans that follow Medicare and RVU. Other services were increased about 2% from 2021 rates. Read more…
As has happened in years past the initial cuts to Medicare have been delayed. In a whirlwind of activity at the end of the year, both the House and Senate passed S.610, which addresses the looming Medicare payment cuts. This means that the cuts have now been delayed, but only Read more…
If you are providing Telemedicine services (live synchronous audio and video) with your patients there is an update for the place of service (POS) in 2022. There is now an additional POS to further delineate the patient’s location whether their home or other location. The POS Workgroup is revising the Read more…
CMS announced on November 12, 2021, that the 2022 deductible for Medicare Part B will be $233. This represents a $30 increase from the 2021 deductible. CMS does cover acupuncture for chronic low back pain and it may be delivered by an LAc however, it must be under the direct Read more…
As occurs every October 1 there are additions and deletions to the ICD10 code set that is effective on October 1, 2021. Though these are 2022 codes the effective date is October 2021. There are now 72, 748 ICD10 diagnosis codes, and this year there were 159 new codes added Read more…
Just as was the case for vaccine mandates under the VA which did not include acupuncturists or community providers the newest Federal mandate announced by President Biden on September 10, 2021, does NOT include acupuncture providers or offices. This new mandate is for Medicare facility providers such as hospitals and Read more…
The VA has given further guidance concerning vaccines for community providers and has clarified that there are no mandatory vaccines for community providers. This includes acupuncture providers who treat VA authorized patients in their own offices. Here is their statement- VA is not requiring community providers in their network to Read more…