TOGETHER WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Dear Colleagues:
 
Physicians across New York have contacted MSSNY to report significant delays in the processing of Medicare Part B claims.  Delays have occurred particularly in the processing of paper claims, but delays in claims submitted electronically have also been reported. To many of our colleagues, this has placed a significant financial burden on their practices.
 Many of these problems began to be reported shortly after the consolidation of the three Medicare carriers in New York by the new multi-state Medicare Part B carrier, National Government Services (NGS).  We understand that part of the problem in processing paper claims is that carriers no longer have staff entering data from paper claims, but instead use scanners to read paper claims.  The use of scanners creates the problem of rejected claims because of legibility issues, positioning of responses within fields, and misalignment in the scanner. 

We also have received reports of computer programming problems that affect all claims.  Since affects all physicians, we have expressed our extreme concern to NGS and CMS.
 
Since federal Medicare law mandates that paper claims still must be accepted and processed from physicians with small private practices, MSSNY is adamant that CMS take steps to insure that paper claims are processed in a timely fashion. 
 
Shortly, MSSNY will be sending out a survey polling our members to assess the severity of the problem. Senator Schumer has been asking our Socio-Medical Economics Division to send documentation to his office; so if you have had problems with NGS and CMS in the past few months, we appreciate your quick response to the survey. We need to be able to document the problems with specific examples in order to press our case.
 
This week also brought the closing of the New York Sun, a metro paper that was struggling for financial backing in one of our nation’s bleakest financial periods. This provocative paper may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but it gave our MSSNY well written stories on physician issues well before the other major papers would listen to the gravity of the problem. Their health reporter, Elizabeth Solomont, never minimized our plight and gave us in-depth, intelligent coverage on health and physician issues that, apparently, a lot of people read. It is also sad to learn that there just is not room in New York for another point of view. We wish Ms. Solomont well at her next assignment. 
 
Michael Rosenberg, MD
MSSNY President
 

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