Newsletter from 10/07/2013

Newsletter
October 7, 2013
Chiropractic Medicare
1. Item #14 – Date of Current.
2. Listening to Your Senior Patients.

1. Date of Current – #14:
Many wonder why the Medicare carrier requests patient records. One of the key reasons is you may have an acute diagnosis, however, the date of current is over 60 days indicating this is a chronic condition. So the Medicare carrier asks for patient records to determine if this is an acute or chronic condition. Date of Current #14 on the claim must never be over 60 days old if you expect payment.

2. Listening to Your Senior Patients:
Probably the most active patients in your practice are your senior patients. They will do about anything. Sometimes it is best we do not know some of the things they do. Usually when they come in with symptoms, it’s from doing things that normally should not have created pain or injury. Most seniors have exacerbations. An exacerbation is soft tissue insult in a predisposed old subluxated arthritic joint. In other words, normally that activity should have not created a problem. An exacerbation occurs at a specific time. The patient has an old subluxation, degenerative joint disease, and they insult the area causing stretching, tearing, etc., in the predisposed joint called “sprain/strain” (pain).
If this is “documented” correctly, Item #14 is changed. This is worth 1 to 6 visits.
Remember.....You must know the correct way to “document” (not S.O.A.P notes).