DAVID STERN, MD (Practice Velocity) Q.Are you able to bill the following two codes together with a modifier: 17110 (Destruction [e.g., laser surgery, electrosurgery, cryosurgery, chemosurgery, surgical curettement], of benign lesions other than skin tags or cutaneous vascular proliferative lesions; up to 14 lesions) 17111 (15 or more lesions)? – Question submitted by Julie Briggs A.These are mutually exclusive codes. You can use 17110 if the physician destroys 14 or less benign lesions (usually warts). …
Read MoreBuyer Self-interest as a Factor in Occupational Health Sales
Avoiding something negative rather than buying on appeal appears to be a very real part of buyer decision-making. Indeed, with sufficient probing, most prospects harbor inner fears that can be successfully addressed during the sales process. Buyers of urgent care occupational health services generally have two motivations: helping their company save money and making their own life easier. Most occupational health sales emphasize the former: reduce injury/illness incidence and associated lost work time and save …
Read MoreSend Lawyers, Guns and Money: Asset Protection for Providers and Urgent Care Owners
JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP Although I am sure I have been described as an Excitable Boy, God knows I am no Warren Zevon. However, ol’ Warren correctly described the mindset of most providers and business owners when their personal assets are attached to a judgment. This article tackles the complex subject of asset protection. When an acquaintance of mine (an attorney) learned that he was going to be named in a suit alleging …
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Loss Management/Injury Management and Rehabilitation
Urgent message: A loss management/injury management product line will further broaden a practice’s range of services (and revenue sources) while also creating a platform for referral of new patients. Donna Lee Gardner, RN, MS, MBA As discussed previously in JUCM, a clinic that seeks to broaden its clinical services—and, thus, its revenue streams—by offering comprehensive urgent care occupational medicine (UCOM) services will provide access to five distinct, but complementary, product lines: • health surveillance • …
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Minding Your (Urgent Care) Ps and Qs
Urgent message: Appropriate attention to place, product, price, promotion, people, and quality help ensure the right approach to facilitating the success of your practice. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, Experity Bartenders in British pubs have a custom of reminding eager patrons to “mind their Ps and Qs”—to watch how many pints and quarts they consume, so as to avoid creating a tab they cannot pay. To assure a satisfactory return on their investment, urgent care …
Read MoreDeveloping Data: May, 2008
As an emerging distinct practice environment, urgent care is in the early stages of building a data set specific to its norms and practices. In Developing Data, JUCM will offer results not only from UCA’s annual benchmarking surveys, but also from research conducted elsewhere to present an expansive view of the healthcare marketplace in which urgent care seeks to strengthen its presence. In this issue: Among patients visiting emergency rooms in the U.S., how is …
Read MoreCoding for Services Attempted But Not Completed, and Other Reader Queries
DAVID STERN, MD (Experity) Q.I can’t find any documentation that tells us specifically how we should code when a provider tries to remove a foreign body, but is not successful and decides that the patient should go to the ER. Do we just code for an office visit or do we also code for the removal of the foreign body since the provider did try, albeit unsuccessfully, and decided the patient needed to be seen …
Read MorePerfecting the Clinic Visit as a Closing Technique
Inviting would-be employer clients to visit your urgent care clinic is an increasingly common and effective marketing tool. Yet, most such visits are done with insufficient forethought. The majority of occupational health closes are “soft” commitments—that is, there is no guarantee that the prospect will use your urgent care clinic. Hence, some type of follow-up to most sales calls is advisable. Further, it is best to actually involve the prospect in some manner, as prospect …
Read MoreThere Will be Blood: Key Reasons That Start-ups Fail
JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP In the movie There Will be Blood, character Henry Brands says, “That part of me is gone…working and not succeeding—all my failures has [sic] left me….I just don’t… care.” At the end, after the struggles, “I don’t care” is a common aphorism of the wanton entrepreneur. Maybe it is uttered during the futile death throes of the dying business. Or, maybe after leaving the bank president’s office. I suppose …
Read MoreDeveloping Data: April, 2008
As an emerging distinct practice environment, urgent care is in the early stages of building a data set specific to its norms and practices. In Developing Data, JUCM will offer results not only from UCA’s annual benchmarking surveys, but also from research conducted elsewhere to present an expansive view of the healthcare marketplace in which urgent care seeks to strengthen its presence. In this issue: What trend is emerging in how participating urgent care practices …
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