The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services encourages all practices to update patients' records with their Medicare Beneficiary identifiers (MBIs) now, before you are busy with other patient insurance changes in January. The federal CMS has encouraged Medicare beneficiaries to carry their cards with them since the agency removed the Social Security Number-based number; if your patients do not bring their Medicare cards with them:

Starting Jan. 1, you must use MBIs to bill Medicare regardless of the date of service:

See this MLN Matters Article for answers to questions on using MBIs.

Supporting patient care relies on optimized technology within the physician practice. This collection of AMA's STEPS Forward™ modules offer strategies on how to maximize your utilization of EHRs, telemedicine, and provides guidance on how to simplify administrative burden.

The AMA Ed Hub™ provides trusted, high-quality education to physicians and other members of the health care team who seek to stay current and continuously improve the care they provide. An AMA account is required to access these modules, but creating an account is free. Read more here.

Plan to join the Colorado Quality Payment Program (COQPP) Coalition for their final event of the year, Office Hours: Preparing to report for MIPS 2019 on Wednesday, Dec 18, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. MT | Link.

And here are the latest QPP resources for practices:

The American Medical Association (AMA) is helping physician practices integrate fundamental changes to the coding and documentation of evaluation and management (E/M) office visit services. New Medicare office-visit coding and documentation guidelines are simpler and more flexible, but physician practices will need to prepare in the new year to get the full benefit of the burden relief the changes are designed to bring.  This 10-point AMA checklist and linked resources will help guide physician practices for a smooth transition to the simpler and more flexible guidelines. To learn more about these significant CPT code set revisions, visit the CPT E/M webpage. Additionally, the AMA has created an interactive educational module, a detailed description of the code and guideline changes, along with a table illustrating medical decision making revision to educate physicians practices.

As we approach the upcoming legislative session, we need to hear from you concerning issues impacting your practice. In partnership with the Colorado Medical Group Management Association, the Colorado Medical Society seeks intelligence from practices on the "front lines." Please contact us at payerissues@cms.org with your payer issues.

And remember to use the members-only Know Your Legal Rights online catalog of provider protection statutes. It contains decades of public policy victories that may assist you in your dealings with payers. Make sure all of the physicians in your practice are members of the Colorado Medical Society so you have access to this great resource today!

*Accessing Know Your Legal Rights requires a CMS member login. Member physicians’ staff can obtain their own login by contacting Tim Yanetta at tim_yanetta@cms.org .