Re: Handheld GPS

[Rollie Parrish <rparrish@flightweb.com>]

On Fri, 13 Sep 2002, Charles Freeman wrote:

> Make sure that your flight program seeks competent legal counsel and
> investigates this option thoroughly before instituting such a system. When I
> researched this a few years ago with HCFA I found they take a dim view of
> the idea. HCFA guidelines do not allow you to bill for arbritrary amounts
> for each flight. If you bill them for ten transports from hospital A to
> hospital B in a month, then those ten flights better have the same mileage
> fee. Otherwise, best case your claim will be denied, and worst case you may
> be subjecting yourself to the possibility of a fraud investigation.

Good points, Charlie. I wish I knew for a fact from personal experience
that HCFA approved this billing method. It would have benefited the
industry to have included this concept in the RegNeg process over the past
few years, if it wasn't attempted.

I guess it's always made sense that this would be an allowable practice
for flight teams since it's essentially allowed for ground transports.
Most ground agencies just document their loaded mileage from the odometer
and I've never heard of a ground ambulance taking country-road shortcuts
to make the shortest trip. That's not to say that ground ambulances
intentionally take longer routes to bill extra mileage, it's just that
I've never heard of a ground agency being denied coverage just because
there was a potential route that could have saved a mile or two off the
trip. I would expect the same to hold with air transports as well.

As far as documentation goes, we already have to document why the patient
requires air transport, why they need a particular facility over another,
and that medical supplies were actually used. Documenting the occaisional
diversion from straight line flight to avoid Class B traffic patterns or
to avoid bad weather, etc. would be the same thing.

Great discussion! Hope it doesn't push the "Antitrust" envelope too much
by talking about this stuff. :)

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Rollie Parrish
FlightWeb: For Air Medical Professionals
http://www.flightweb.com




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