Bulletproof Decision Making started out as my own professional exploration of Medicare chart compliance for my private practice physical therapy clinic.
(note: you can sign up for Bulletproof at the bottom of this page)
I wanted to make a better compliance plan for my Medicare charts and notes.
My starting assumption was that good clinical documentation is completely related to competent clinical decision-making.
It is not.
Good clinical documentation today (2009) is all about dotting your 'i' s and crossing your 't' s.
What I learned
In early 2009, I paid a Medicare auditor $1,000 to come in and examine my charts and comment upon my compliance program. As you might expect, the auditor was able to find many 'deficiencies' in my charts.
I realized then that, to be helpful to other private practice therapists, Bulletproof needed to be about physical therapists' decisions driving treatment, documentation and compliance.
Why do physical therapists' decisions matter to Medicare?
Within a few short years, physical therapists may track their patient outcomes using remote data-gathering technology such as e-mail, web-based forms and CAT testing.
I wanted to make a better compliance plan for my Medicare charts and notes.
My starting assumption was that good clinical documentation is completely related to competent clinical decision-making.
It is not.
Good clinical documentation today (2009) is all about dotting your 'i' s and crossing your 't' s.
What I learned
In early 2009, I paid a Medicare auditor $1,000 to come in and examine my charts and comment upon my compliance program. As you might expect, the auditor was able to find many 'deficiencies' in my charts.
I realized then that, to be helpful to other private practice therapists, Bulletproof needed to be about physical therapists' decisions driving treatment, documentation and compliance.
Why do physical therapists' decisions matter to Medicare?
Within a few short years, physical therapists may track their patient outcomes using remote data-gathering technology such as e-mail, web-based forms and CAT testing.
Patients could enter their own data.
This should reduce the 'information asymmetry' that has led some insurers to refer to physical therapy as a 'black hole' into which money disappears.
Currently, 52% of physical therapists do not use outcome measures which means that payers have no information showing if their beneficiaries got better, or not.
Electronic, standardized outcome measures will provide information on patient functional progress as well as initial and ongoing medical necessity for physical therapy.
Who are the Doctors?
Expansion of physical therapists' ability to serve as front-line health care providers means that the complexity of physical therapists decisions will determine the extent and intensity to which those services can be billed.
This should reduce the 'information asymmetry' that has led some insurers to refer to physical therapy as a 'black hole' into which money disappears.
Currently, 52% of physical therapists do not use outcome measures which means that payers have no information showing if their beneficiaries got better, or not.
Electronic, standardized outcome measures will provide information on patient functional progress as well as initial and ongoing medical necessity for physical therapy.
Who are the Doctors?
Expansion of physical therapists' ability to serve as front-line health care providers means that the complexity of physical therapists decisions will determine the extent and intensity to which those services can be billed.
Physical therapists will bill like physicians.
Currently, physicians use Evaluation and Management codes (E/M) , that one day I hope physical therapists will use.
Payment to physicians is based on the following:
Bulletproof is a resource that prepares physical therapists for the day when our decisions drive practice: when the frequency, intensity and need for physical therapy are derived from our physical therapy diagnosis.
The duration of physical therapy will be derived from the physical therapy prognosis.
I eagerly await the day when a Medicare audit of my charts is based, not on my handwriting or my chart templates, but on my decisions and on my clinical competence.
Currently, physicians use Evaluation and Management codes (E/M) , that one day I hope physical therapists will use.
Payment to physicians is based on the following:
- an extended patient history
- detailed, multi-systems exam
- number of diagnoses
- complexity of decision-making
Bulletproof is a resource that prepares physical therapists for the day when our decisions drive practice: when the frequency, intensity and need for physical therapy are derived from our physical therapy diagnosis.
The duration of physical therapy will be derived from the physical therapy prognosis.
I eagerly await the day when a Medicare audit of my charts is based, not on my handwriting or my chart templates, but on my decisions and on my clinical competence.
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