The Pulse is the bi-weekly e-newsletter from The Physician Alliance, one of Michigan's largest physician organizations serving more than 2,200 primary care and specialty physicians.
The Pulse of The Physician Alliance
Friday, August 4, 2017
Patient self-management forms focus on multiple health topics

The Physician Alliance developed a series of self-management forms for practices to share with patients. The forms focus on various pediatric and adult topics, including:
  • Patient asthma self management form (9 years and under)
  • Patient asthma self management form (10 years and older)
  • Patient diabetes self management form
  • Patient diabetes action plan form
  • Patient healthy lifestyle self management form (17 years and under)
  • Patient healthy lifestyle self management form (18 years and older)
  • Patient heart failure self management goals form

The forms are available for download from TPA's website.
Care management billing and coding seminar video available

If you missed the recent education seminar related to transitional care management and chronic care management billing and coding, check out the video.

Visit TPA's website to access this video and other past seminars and webinars.
Medicare issues new patient cards

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched a new initiative to remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards. The process strives to prevent fraud, fight identity theft and protect program funding and the private healthcare and financial information of Medicare beneficiaries.

CMS will begin issuing new cards with a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI), a randomly assigned number, to replace the patient's Social Security number. Medicare beneficiaries will receive the new cards beginning in April 2018, with all new cards distributed by April 2019. To ease the transition, CMS is developing the ability for practices to search the new MBI through a secure tool at the point of service. CMS is also setting a 21-month transition period where healthcare providers can use either the MBI or current number for billing purposes.

For more information on preparing for this change, visit CMS' webpage.
Health plan quality incentive measures updated

The health plan quality incentive measures have been updated for 2017. These changes apply to private practice physicians and are broken down by various insurance companies.

To access the changes, visit the Learning Center on TPA's website.
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The Physician Alliance | 20952 Twelve Mile, Suite 130, St. Clair Shores MI 48081 | 586-498-3555
thephysicianalliance@thephysicianalliance.org | www.thephysicianalliance.org