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Prepare yourself for the potential of malpractice cases by maintaining good relationships with your patients and by following thorough rules.

The push is on for physicians to embrace the concept of high-value care, providing patients with appropriate treatment while avoiding wasteful or unnecessary tests. But high-value care requires physicians to navigate many pitfalls, including lack of time to talk with patients and malpractice pressures.

At first glance, Medicare’s new chronic care management (CCM) billing code, which became available January 1, looks like a major opportunity for primary care practices. But many practices will find it difficult to meet the requirements for billing the code, and a major reason is the limitations of today’s electronic health record (EHR) systems.

HHS’ announcement that, by the end of 2016, it aims to link 30% of Medicare reimbursements to the "quality of value" is the latest sign that, after years of talking about the importance of quality and outcomes in medicine, payers are getting serious about making them part of their reimbursement formulas.

Regardless of how well physicians or their coders understand the new coding system, practices will not fare well on reimbursement unless their providers can document encounters in sufficient detail to support the new codes.

MU2: Mission Impossible

Many physicians feel they're between a rock and a hard place. If they're participating in the Medicare side of the Meaningful Use program, have attested before, and don't attest to MU2 this year, they'll not only lose financial incentives but will be subject to penalties in 2017.

Despite the reimbursement challenges primary care physicians will continue to face in 2015, new initiatives will provide primary care physicians with opportunities to grow and better manage patient health.

Beginning January 1, 2015, medical practices can, for the first time, bill Medicare for the non face-to-face time spent managing care for patients with multiple chronic diseases. But doing so may prove challenging for many practices, at least at first.

It’s possible to maintain a viable, even thriving practice if physicians confront challenges and identify fixes that can improve their lives and the health of their patients.

Code with confidence

Opportunities and strategies for billing non-face-to-face encounters

Who owns patient data in an electronic health record? The traditional concept of ownership is unraveling as patient data migrates from paper charts to the cloud.

Healthcare workers are in a unique position to separate the facts from the fears concerning the Ebola virus in the United States. Make sure you and your staff members are educated about the virus and able to answer any questions from patients.

While a recent study has found that electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) pose less of a health risk than conventional cigarettes, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a ban on indoor use and stronger regulation.

Recognizing the rising cost of healthcare and the importance of providing value to patients, resource utilization and value assessments will now be explicitly considered in the development of clinical practice guidelines and performance measures from the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association.