Medical Coding Conferences


11:00am - 1:00pm	Early Registration
1:00pm - 5:00pm	Workshop #1 Discover 10 Fresh Revenue Boosting Tips With a possible recession looming, every penny counts. Join us as we nail down successful appeals tactics, negotiation strategies and contracting do's that will put more money on the table for telephone care, after hour services, mental health diagnoses, and more. Plus, find out what services you should add - or eliminate - to make the most bucks in 2008.
Presenter:	Vicky Varley O'Neil, CPC, CCS-P
	Workshop #2 Consults and Office Visits and Preventive Care … Oh My! There's more to coding E/M services than 99213. If you're not taking advantage of consults on your patients, you're limiting your practice's income. And if a preventive medicine service addresses a problem, you also have to deal with payer bundling issues (and Medicare carve outs) while trying to make sure you have supporting documentation. Make sure you have all the tools you need to face — and overcome — all of these challenges by attending this must-have workshop that will ensure you're on top of your E/M coding game.
Presenter:	Deborah Grider, CPC, CPC-H, CPC-P, CCS-P, EMS
2:45pm - 3:00pm	Refreshment Break

Conference Day 1
Friday, May 16th & July 11th


8:00am - 9:00am	Registration, Continental Breakfast & Exhibits
9:00am - 10:00am	Option #1 Make Modifiers "Safely" Work for You The rules and documentation requirements have changed for modifiers 25 and 59. Solve real world scenarios that will get you choosing the correct modifier. Plus, learn when to break a global period, a CCI bundle and more — all while protecting your practice from payer scrutiny.
Presenter:	Jennifer Godreau, CPC
9:00am - 10:00am	Option #2 PQRI: Are You In or Out? The voluntary Physician Quality Reporting Initiative puts practices on one of two sides: in or out. Get the information to judge whether enrollment is right for your practice. We’ll teach wannabes how to join and enrollees the typical primary care measures to watch for. Finally, navigate the denominator codes, learn when to apply a modifier and get answers to common reporting questions.
Presenter:	Vicky Varley O'Neil, CPC, CCS-P
10:00am - 10:15am	Refreshment Break
10:15am - 11:15am	Option #1 Stop Immunizations From Hurting Your Bottom-line Are your product payments barely covering your costs? Get insider tips that will let you keep providing these critical services. Identify the product and administration coding pitfalls that could be costing your practice payment, and discover the secret to determining which product V code to report.
Presenter:	Charles Scott, MD
10:15am - 11:15am	Option #2 It's Only Skin Deep: How to Get Paid for Office Dermatology Procedures If your physician is excising lesions, performing simple repairs or removing skin tags in the office, payers often want to bundle such services in the E/M. Discover the key words to zoom in on to determine whether you should fight for service pay. Plus, give your doctors these documentation keys to fly through any audit.
Presenter:	Cindy Hughes, CPC
11:15am - 12:15pm	Option #1 Breathe Easy When Billing for Nebs, Allergies and More Includes Spirometry & other pulmonary services (aerosiksm teaching MDI's, etc) Get the cheat sheet you need to navigate the rule mined pulmonary services' territory. Find out the questions your billers need to ask before charging inhalation treatment, nebulizer education and spirometry. Take home allergy coding tips that will assure you're not undercoding or overcoding immunotherapy services, testing and E/Ms.
Presenter:	Jennifer Godreau, CPC
11:15am - 12:15pm	Option #2 Medicare vs. Private Payer: 7 CPO Coding Tips You Can't Live Without How you report care plan oversight depends on how you answer one simple question: Who's your carrier? Medicare and private payers have separate CPO rules, and if you slip up, you'll end up with a stack of denials rather than a stack of cash. During this session, we'll break down each set of rules to show you exactly what to do to make sure your physician receives every cent he deserves for his CPO services.
Presenter:	Barbara Cobuzzi, MBA, CPC-OTO, CPC-H, CPC-P, CPC-I, CHCC
12:15pm - 1:15pm	Lunch & Exhibits
1:15pm - 2:15pm	Option #1 Easy Strategies for Higher Paying Placements & Removals When you remove casts, warts, sutures or splinters, you're kissing deserved dollars good-bye if you're stuck in the E/M section. We'll show you how to take advantage of commonly overlooked codes for often performed pediatric procedures.
Presenter:	Charles Scott, MD
1:15pm - 2:15pm	Option #2 "Welcome to Medicare" Made Easy — How to Make the IPPE Work for Your Practice Don't let the "Welcome to Medicare" physical overwhelm you. We'll give you the lowdown on the seven elements and how to make sure you're meeting the program's requirements. Plus, you'll get the ins and outs of how to capture all your physician's services to ensure accurate reimbursement ... even if he has to refer the patient out for part of the physical.
Presenter:	Jill M. Young, CPC, CPC-ED, CPC-IM
2:15pm - 3:15pm	Option #1 Take These Steps to Obtain Phone Call & Other Indirect Services Payment You've finally got time-based phone call codes. This action plan will put you on the payment path for non-face-to-face services including prolonged services, care plan oversight, forms completion and more.
Presenter:	Richard Tuck, MD
2:15pm - 3:15pm	Option #2 Ace Your Nursing Facility Services Coding … Here's How When do you need separate notes when your physician sees a patient in the nursing home? How do you report nursing facility admittance that occurs on the same date as an office visit or inpatient discharge? What about those non-face-to-face services? You have so many questions about submitting your physician's nursing facility services — and we have the answers. This session will give you all the tools and strategies you need to track and bill your doctor's work, plus get it paid.
Presenter:	Barbara Cobuzzi, MBA, CPC-OTO, CPC-H, CPC-P, CPC-I, CHCC
3:15pm - 3:30pm	Refreshment Break
3:30pm - 4:30pm	Option #1 Asthma, Jaundice and Diabetes: These Tips Will Keep Your ICD-9 Coding on the Straight and Narrow Take the guesswork out of reporting post birth visits by letting the diagnosis steer your encounter coding. You won't want to miss these hidden ICD-9 coding tips that will get you coding chronic conditions when you should, looking for nonincluded codes and ordering diagnoses like a pro.
Presenter:	Cindy Hughes, CPC
3:30pm - 4:30pm	Opton #2 ICD-9 Coding Mythbuster Get the facts about the most common ICD-9 coding myths that hurt reimbursement for primary care practices. HINT: Sometimes signs and symptoms ARE the definitive diagnosis that will ethically boost your E/M level. In addition, we'll give you the tips and tricks of the trade you need to support medical necessity for the services your physicians provide.
Presenter:	Deborah Grider, CPC, CPC-H, CPC-P, CCS-P, EMS
4:30pm - 5:30pm	Opton #1 1 E/M or 2? Winning Ways to Cut Problem + Well Payment Losses Your pediatrician performs an 18-month-old preventive medicine service on a 20 month old. Find out the steps you need to take to code correctly and get paid for outside age range services, international adoption exams and more. Solve real case scenarios that will nail down appealable office visits with well checks and learn the alternatives.
Presenter:	Cindy Hughes, CPC
4:30pm - 5:30pm	Opton #2 Inpatient Coding: How to Avoid the Landmines That Can Explode Your Claims Your primary care physicians admits a patient, but doesn't round on him until the next morning. What do you do? During this session, you'll get strategies for getting paid for all that pre-admission and admission work and the easy way to pinpoint which E/M service code to use. Find out what to do if the doctor hands over care to a hospitalist or other specialist to ensure you still see the dollars your office deserves.
Presenter:	Jill M. Young, CPC, CPC-ED, CPC-IM
5:30pm - 6:30pm	Cocktail Party

Conference Day 2
Saturday, May 17th & July 12th


8:00am - 9:00am	Continental Breakfast & Exhibits
9:00am - 10:00am	Option #1 EX Files, Coding for Physician Extenders You'll take full advantage of NPs, MAs, RTs and more after you go home with these ideas for applicable codes. Plus find out supervision requirements and state restrictions that will keep your practice out of payer scrutiny.
Presenter:	Richard Tuck, MD
9:00am - 10:00am	Option #2 Documentation Triage — Help Your Docs Determine Where They Need Help … And Why! You know the old adage, "If it's not documented, it wasn't done." Don't let your practice lose another penny because of under documentation. Even if you feel like you've done all you possibly can to get your physicians on board the documentation bandwagon, let our veteran expert speakers open your eyes to some creative tools and tactics you can apply immediately to help your physicians capture all the work they're doing in their documentation.
Presenter:	Suzan Hvizdash, CPC, CPC-E/M, CPC-EDS
10:00am - 11:00am	Option #1 Keep Your 99214 & 99215 Use on the Up and Up Insurers are downcoding based on diagnosis. Pediatricians are notorious undercoders. These are the facts on documentation, ICD-9 codes, payer specifics and CPT you need to use mid-to-high-level office visit codes without risking underpayments, repayments and fraud.
Presenter:	Richard Tuck, MD
10:00am - 11:00am	Option #2 Make Audits Pay! Where to Look for Good News During Your Records Review Auditing your coding doesn't have to be a headache. You can use it to show where your practice is missing out on reporting certain procedures or boosting that E/M level to a 99214 … and maybe a 99215. We'll show you how to use those CMS auditing sheets to your best advantage and point out the red flags that you should avoid. Plus, shed light on the snags that insurers use to trip you up and bring your level down.
Presenter:	Jill M. Young, CPC, CPC-ED, CPC-IM
11:00am - 11:15am	Refreshment Break
11:15am - 12:15pm	Option #1 Capture All Bright Futures Services Identify which Bright Futures coding opportunities your practice is missing as we walk through this age-by-age preventive medicine and related service checklist. Weigh the pros and cons of purchasing OAE and Suresight equipment.
Presenter:	Jennifer Godreau, CPC
11:15am - 12:15pm	Option #2 Capitalize on Your Support Staff: Get What You Deserve for Your NPP's Services Your talented staff is just waiting for you to take advantage of them. Are your nurse practitioners, nutritionist, diabetic educators, respiratory therapists contributing to your practice's bottom line as much as they could? Find out what you can bill and when. Plus, make sure you have incident-to rules down pat - the OIG's targeting them in 2008!
Presenter:	Suzan Hvizdash, CPC, CPC-E/M, CPC-EDS

Post-Conference Workshops
Saturday, May 17th & July 12th


12:30pm - 4:30pm	Workshop #1 Coding ADD/ADHD From "Consult" to Maintenance Stay and join us for this nuts and bolts session that will have you capturing all spectrums of ADD/ADHD care. Explore initial pre-diagnosis encounter options including what to code for nurse/teacher opinion requests and diagnostic tests. Get the nitty-gritty on the pharmaceutical management code and preventive medicine service inclusions. Learn how mental health carve outs can make appeals fruitless and how toolkits can overcome ICD-9 mental health code payment woes. Workshop #2 Practice Management Session- EMR & Billing Best Practices Revealed The electronic medical record is more than just the place where you input your CPT and ICD-9 codes to submit claims to insurers. Use this workshop to make sure you're tapping into all the benefits EMRs present, from report and benchmarks to claim and payment tracking without falling into upcoding traps. Plus, you get expert billing and collections tips that can add to your practice's bottom line.
Presenter:	Barbara Cobuzzi, MBA, CPC-OTO, CPC-H, CPC-P, CPC-I, CHCC

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