My daughter was astonished to learn, by way of idle carpool chatter, that I absolutely loathed reading when I was young.  I avoided it at all costs. In fact, I graduated 17th in a high school class of 310 (Go Rams!) having only read two books all the way through.

“Wait. What?” she asked. “You are messing with me. You read all the time.”

“I do now, but I didn’t start until a few years after college.”

“What two books?” she asked after a long pause, looking for me to crack a smile or otherwise give up the ruse.

“Nicholas and Alexandra and … I think … Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.”

“Well, of course. What other two books could it have been? How the freak did you graduate?”

The truth of it is, so long as I paid attention in class and took good notes, I was able to capture the really important parts by listening to the teacher and my peers. Afterwards, I briefly reviewed my scribbles and the text to gather the relevant facts needed to do the graded work.

Thinking about it now, I think the secret ingredients of efficient learning are:
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• Listening and absorbing the important concepts through good notetaking.
• Scanning the long form sources and references to acquire facts related to the important concepts.
• Asking questions.
• Trial and error (admittedly, I didn’t slay every one of Mrs. Fretwell’s literature quizzes, but as a whole, I came out literate).

This bit of knowledge hacking has served me well in a career swamped with facts, dreadful authoritative texts, and conflicting opinion. I show up and listen every day and take lots of notes to distill the genesis of what is important. I read to find the specific answers and support I need to do my job well. Experience is nothing more than the repetition of trial and error.
 
Not for nothing, but this method of learning complex tasks is what powers (K)notes, our bi-monthly event and publication covering current events and reimbursement happenings in the HME industry. If you would like to graduate at the top of your class, our next event is on December 14, 2017 at 2:00 pm EST.

You get a pit in your stomach when someone at the office exclaims, “How could we not know about this? Why didn’t you catch this sooner? When did this change?” You are not alone.
 
We all know failure to keep up with industry changes can mean we miss a revenue opportunity or incur an undesirable liability. So why don’t we do a better job of staying current when we know it is so important? 
 
Either our news feeds are not making it to us, or we get bombarded with too much news to process. In the end, updates wash over us and we do not process or retain the information effectively. A major contributing factor is our failure to compartmentalize or prioritize the task of processing new information.
 
So how can you get a different result?  Be intentional about checking for updates, but limit how often you check to twice a week*.  In other words, slow your roll.
 
I know you were expecting us to say check more often, but that won’t work.  You want a DIFFERENT result, right?
 
Checking less often allows you to be more purposeful about the task at hand.  When you dedicate time for this task, you can be deliberate about absorbing the updates and acting upon changes relevant to your business.  If you stick to it, you won’t get caught flat footed.
 
But then again, there is another way… you can connect with Andrea as she rapid fires the latest industry updates in just 60 minutes. She will digest, translate and make sure you know what to do about these updates.  We hope to see you during A Power Hour with Andrea Stark on Thursday, October 19th. At the end, you get to pick her brain… that opportunity alone is a powerful reason to attend!

*​You need a place to store updates until you are ready to process them. Consider creating a special folder in your email called “News”. This dedicated folder gives those messages a home until you are ready to review them twice a week.
 
To create a folder in Outlook, simply right click Inbox, select the New Folder option and label the folder “News”. Now you can drag and drop newsy-emails into your “News” folder. 

When you smiled, held the door and said "Have a great day!" to the young lady entering the building, you didn't realize your kindness would later inspire her to help a stranger carry groceries to their car.  
When you praised your child for being pretty darn good at math, you didn't realize this would give them the confidence to tutor a classmate not so good at math.

Every action can stimulate a ripple effect.

In the DME world, payment posters have a profound ripple effect on the company based on their actions or inactions.  (Who would've thought?!)

When the payments team posts timely and accurately:

• AR staff are more effective.
• Denials are targeted early and result in improved collections.
• Secondary claims open and pay rapidly.
• Management is confident in the accuracy of the data they review and make informed decisions.

However, when the payments team is backlogged:

• Your database suffers.
• Managerial reports are skewed. Uninformed decisions cause scattering of resources.
• Secondary claims remain stuck and DSO climbs.
• AR staff cannot efficiently work AR projects or denials.

Payment posters clearly pave the way for company success ...  yet too often the job is not done timely.

The biggest culprit is the assignment of "harmless", incompatible tasks. When payment posters are pulled away from their primary responsibility - quickly and accurately posting cash and denials into the billing software - these tasks become harmful.

If your payments and denials are not currently posted within 72 hours of receipt, you need to engage staff and isolate tasks that prevent the job to be done by:

• Asking payment posting staff to describe a typical day and current responsibilities.
• Writing down tasks and responsibilities that are not directly related to posting cash and denials.
• Reassigning incompatible tasks.
• Underscoring the importance of getting caught up and staying current.  
• Alerting supervisors and managerial personnel of the ripple effect of pulling these associates before their primary duties are fulfilled.

You will thank us later. But don't stop there...

Attend our You Don't Need More People: 3 Steps to Prevent AR Bloat event on October 12th to further explore the ripple effect and how to leverage your payment posting team to achieve a complete database.  We will also share two other proven strategies that build on your complete database with limited staff.

CMS will expand the Targeted Probe and Educate (TPE) program to all MAC Jurisdictions later this year. CMS launched the first TPE pilot project in 2016 with Part A and B providers in Jurisdiction F. Due to the success of the pilot, all Jurisdictions will now take part in CMS's latest audit initiative. The TPE process begins with providers who have high error rates for a specific item. Selected providers will be audited on a sample of claims and then individually educated based on the results. This review and education process can repeat up to three times until a desirable error rate is achieved or the contractors deem it necessary to escalate and engage other tools in their arsenal. 
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As more resources shift to the TPE program, providers can expect closure of many ongoing, widespread DME MAC audits. MiraVista expects this innovation to be welcomed by providers and ultimately lessen the number and duration of audited claims at the NPI level.  We will share more details of this new program and answer your questions during A Power Hour with Andrea Stark event on October 19.