Home News Briefs Hospital medicine’s new think tank; pay-for-reporting update

Hospital medicine’s new think tank; pay-for-reporting update

June 2007

Published in the June 2007 issue of Today’s Hospitalist.

New think tank targets private-practice hospital medicine

Executives from some of the country’s largest private practice hospitalist groups have formed a new think tank to provide leadership and advocacy on issues related to private practice hospital medicine.

Thirteen chief executive officers announced last month that they had formed the Phoenix Group to serve as a hospital medicine think tank. According to a statement, the companies represent nearly 10% of all practicing hospitalists and include IPC-The Hospitalist Company, Cogent Healthcare, Hospitalists Management Group, PrimeDoc Inc., EmCare Hospitalist Division and Eagle Hospital Physicians, among others.

In a statement, Adam Singer, MD, IPC’s chief executive officer who helped form the group, emphasized that the group’s formation was “not an academic exercise.” The group intends to issue a white paper on issues facing private practice hospitalist medicine, including credentialing, contracting and hospital financial support.

Executives from more private practices are expected to attend the group’s second meeting, which is slated for September.

Hospitalist named for second year to list of top MD executives

For the second year in a row, Ron Greeno, MD, chief medical officer of Cogent Healthcare, has made a list of the country’s 50 most powerful physician executives in health care.

Dr. Greeno, who is one of Cogent’s co-founders, made the list published last month by Modern Healthcare magazine. Dr. Greeno was the sole hospitalist executive to make the list in both 2007 and 2006.

In a statement, Dr. Greeno said that his tenure on the list is an indication of “the growing prominence of hospital medicine.”

CMS details codes to use for pay-for-reporting program

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued detailed specifications that physicians should use to report on quality measures, as part of the physician quality reporting initiative that begins next month.

From July 1 through Dec. 13, physicians must report on several of 74 different measures to be eligible for a 1.5% bonus payment of total allowed charges for services provided to Medicare patients. Eleven of those measures apply to hospitalists. No registration is required.

To qualify for the bonus, physicians must report data on at least three measures. They must also successfully report on at least 80% of the patients they treat during that period to whom those measures would apply.

Hospitalists should report data by adding a CPT II code to the ICD-9 diagnosis code and E/M service code. The CMS has also issued a list of exclusion codes to use to indicate a reason why an eligible patient did not receive a particular therapy or intervention.

While hospitalists stand to earn less than $1,000 in bonuses for 2007, physicians are being urged to get experience with a program that is expected to expand.

Relevant hospitalist measures include those for heart failure, coronary artery disease, acute myocardial infarction, stroke, and advance care plan documentation.

Specifications are online.