"Physical therapy is not a subspecialty of the medical profession and physical therapists are not medical doctors; we are a separate profession that provides a unique service that physicians are unable and untrained to provide."

Letter to the AMA from the APTA, Dec 2009

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Medicare Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) have, in 2009, begun their work auditing the charts and notes of hospitals, physicians and physical therapists.

Their activities have, as they impact physical therapists, have been discussed in this blog, also here, and here.

During the Medicare RAC Demonstration Project inpatient hospitals were the primary target, accounting for over 84% of the recovered amounts.

Physicians (and physical therapists) accounted for less than $19 million of almost a billion dollars recovered.

Will the same experience prevail with the Permanent RAC Program?

The American Association of Family Practices has prepared this Questions and Answers page that may help private practice physical therapists calculate their risk and answer their questions.

Free Tutorial

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Tim Richardson, PT owns a private practice at Medical Arts Rehabilitation, Inc in Palmetto, Florida. The clinic website is at MedicalArtsRehab.com.

Bulletproof Expert Systems: Clinical Decision Support for Physical Therapists in the Outpatient Setting is a manager's workbook with stories, checklists, charts, graphs, tables, and templates describing how you can use paper-based or computerized tools to improve your clinic's Medicare compliance, process adherence and patient outcomes.

Tim has implemented a computerized Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system in his clinic since 2006 that serves as a Reminder, Alerting, Prompting and Predicting CDS using evidence-based tests and measures.

Tim can be reached at
TimRichPT@BulletproofPT.com .

"Make Decisions like Doctors"


Copyright 2007-2010 by Tim Richardson, PT.
No reproduction without authorization.

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American Physical Therapy Association

American Physical Therapy Association
Consistent with the American Physical Therapy Association Vision Statement for Physical Therapy 2020, the American Physical Therapy Association supports exclusive physical therapist ownership and operation of physical therapy services.