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CALL TO ACTION! Contact CMS To Include NPs and PAs

Posted over 5 years ago by Michael Vreeland

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Utah’s Nurse Practitioners:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) amended the Medicare Claims Processing Manual to allow for teaching physician verification — rather than redocumentation— of student notes related to Evaluation and Management (E/M) services (Transmittal 3971, later replaced by Transmittal 4068).  This change was celebrated by students, preceptors, and teaching institutions as a step in the right direction to decrease the regulatory burden that comes with the training of clinicians.

The comments period for this change expires on September 10, 2018. NOW is the time to make your voice heard!

https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=CMS-2018-0076-0621

We urge CMS to include NP and PA Preceptors. Currently, language only includes a "teaching physician". Simply changing this term from "teaching physician" to more inclusive terms, such as "teaching provider" or "teaching clinician" would resolve this issue. If CMS believes such a change would require additional rulemaking, the Secretary could use his existing waiver authority or issue a nonenforcement instruction to Medicare carriers to immediately extend the teaching physician policies to NP and PA preceptors. The Secretary has statutory authority to define "teaching physician" and could include NP and PA preceptors.

We urge CMS to include NP and PA students. Currently, it does not take into account NP or PA studentsCMS has the authority to interpret the word "student" in Transmittal 4068 to include NP and PA students. The term "student" is not defined in regulation, and the existing definition of "student" in the Medicare Claims Processing Manual already includes NP and PA students. However, this language is only specific to medical students and physician trainees. 

We strongly urge you to take 1-2 minutes and go to the link provided here to make your voice heard on this important matter. It is our belief that excellent student experiences make excellent clinicians and we sincerely hope you get yourself and your colleagues involved to make the change become reality. 

https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=CMS-2018-0076-0621

Sincerely,

 

Mike Vreeland, APRN

President