Beginning in April 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will mail new Medicare cards to all people with Medicare on a flow basis by geographic location and other factors. Additional details on timing will be available as the mailings progress.

Mailing Schedule

April - June 2018
Jurisdiction L - Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and the Washington D.C. Metro Area (Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia, the city of Alexandria, VA, the District of Columbia, and Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland)

After June 2018
Jurisdiction L - New Jersey; Jurisdiction H - Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indian Health Service (IHS) and Veterans Affairs (VA).

For more information, please reference this article.

To most practice managers, the words "prior authorization" conjures up wasted time spent jumping through unnecessary hoops imposed by insurers to ensure that patients get the medications the physicians prescribe and patients need.

A   recent survey   found that physicians complete an average of 29 prior authorizations per week, spending the equivalent of approximately two business days (14.6 hours)* on administrative hassles to receive approvals from health insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

If an insurance plan covers a treatment that would benefit your patient, you shouldn't have to waste time ensuring access to it. That's why the Physicians' Grassroots Network recently launched a new page dedicated to   prior authorization .  As you navigate the page, you'll learn how prior authorization is driving a wedge between physicians and patients. If you have personal experience with this issue, please consider joining the thousands who have already shared their voice on this issue.

Help us get the word out about this flawed process and how it threatens patient care and your ability to practice medicine. Together, we can make prior authorization a thing of the past.    Share your story now!

• Billed $90,000 or less Medicare Part B allowed charges OR
• Furnished covered professional services under PFS to 200 or fewer beneficiaries

In response to a directive from the House of Delegates (Resolution 012, A-17), the American Medical Association (AMA) has created a new resource to help medical staffs address disruptive physician behavior.  Now available in the AMA Education Center, this free 30-minute learning module  shows physicians how to define appropriate, inappropriate, and disruptive behavior, presents guidelines for dealing with these behaviors in a fair manner, and provides users with their own downloadable copy of the AMA Model Medical Staff Code of Conduct that they can integrate into their medical staff bylaws.

Part 4: Skilled Nursing Facility Readmission Measure (SNFRM), Quality Payment Program (QPP), Medication Management and Opioid Initiative (MMO), Quality Improvement (QI) Tools, Stigma, Harm Reduction & Alternatives, Wrap-Up