| Recognizing apathy in Alzheimer's disease
| Apathy has been increasingly recognized as a neuropsychiatric symptom in many neurologic disorders. Since apathy per se almost never occurs as an isolated syndrome, it must be viewed in the context of an individual's entire behavioral and cognitive status. | |  MORE ARTICLES
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| FDA advising prescribers to stay course with bisphosphonates
| | Like many medications intended for use over a period of many years, questions of bisphosphonates' safety have repeatedly arisen and must be addressed anew now that there is a suspected association with atrial fibrillation. The Food and Drug Administration, after conducting a review of the latest data, has issued an Early Communication advising health care providers not to alter their prescribing practices and patients not to discontinue their bisphosphonate medication. | | | Statins yield even more positive findings
| | There seems to be no end to the good news about statins, currently demonstrating their usefulness for preventing--or ameliorating--a startling variety of ills, including Alzheimer's disease, blood clots, pneumonia, and prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels. | | | High dose of flu vaccine boosts immune response at 65 and older
| | Giving people age 65 and older a dose 4 times larger than the standard flu vaccine boosts the amount of antibodies in their blood to levels considered protective against the flu, more so than the standard flu vaccine does. | | | No effect of statin on cardiovascular outcomes in older patients with advanced systolic heart failure
| | In older patients with advanced systolic heart failure of ischemic etiology, rosuvastatin added to standard heart failure medication had no significant effect on the incidence of cardiovascular death, nonfatal MI, and nonfatal stroke compared with placebo. | | | Even asymptomatic PAD significantly increases the risk of mortality in older patients
| | All older adults should be screening for peripheral arterial disease. | | | EDITORIAL: How I became a lifelong learner: Going the distance in Geriatrics.
| | "I'm still learning." - Michelangelo (1475-1564) | | | Initiating aspirin/dipyridamole once daily can improve adherence
| | American Heart Association's International Stroke Conference 2007, February 7-9, 2007, San Francisco | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Medicare Q & A: Can an emergency department visit be billed if a Medicare patient is triaged by a nurse but leaves before seeing a physician?
| | In a physician clinic, billing is fee-for-service, but rural health clinics are paid from Medicare Part A on an encounter basis and the encounter has to be performed by a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner. | | | Medicare Q & A: Because Medicare pays less for a B-12 service than the B-12 costs me, can I have a patient sign an Advanced Beneficiary Notice and then bill the patient separately?
| | You are not allowed to bill a patient for a covered service that is bundled into another service even if the patient signs an Advanced Beneficiary Notice. | | | Medicare Q & A: If after surgery, during post-op, a surgeon asks me to see my patient because of abnormal lab results can I bill a consultation for that hospital day?
| | If a surgeon is asking for your opinion, post-op, on a patient because of abnormal lab results, you can charge a consultation. | | | Medicare Q & A: If an EKG is taken at the hospital on a patient, but I don't read the results and do my interpretation until the next day, what date should be put on the interpretation
| | Use the actual date of any service. If interpretation and technical portion are done on separate dates, you would charge on the separate dates. | | | Medicare Q & A: If I perform a diagnostic test on a patient in my office and then send the test to a physician in another country for interpretation, can I still be paid for the technical portion of the test?
| | You can be paid for the technical portion of a diagnostic test being sent to another country, but Medicare cannot pay for an interpretation provided outside the United States. | | | Medicare Q & A: If Medicare decides documentation from a former member of a practice doesn't support the levels that were billed, who will be responsible for paying Medicare back?
| | If payment to a former member of a practice was reassigned to the group, and the documentation is found wanting, it will be up to the group practice to pay Medicare any recoupment and/or fines. | | | Medicare Q & A: In regards to a collection issue, is there a Medicare requirement that statements be sent to patients at certain intervals?
| | There is no requirement by Medicare that you send a final notice or certified letter before you turn a patient over to a collection agency. | | | Medicare Q & A: At a recent seminar I heard that Medicare no longer allows physician assistants or nurse practitioners to perform consultations. Is that correct?
| | Physician assistants and nurse practitioners can bill consultations to Medicare on new or established patients. Use the outpatient consultation codes in the office (99241-99245) or inpatient consult codes 99251-99255. | | | Medicare Q & A: Is there a billing difference between a private practice and a rural health clinic when a medical assistant or nurse performs a nurse visit and documents the blood pressure on a warfarin patient?
| | In a physician clinic, billing is fee-for-service, but rural health clinics are paid from Medicare Part A on an encounter basis and the encounter has to be performed by a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner. | |
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