Practice Management Alert

If Medicare patients lose track of their exams, your practice stands to lose payment for the newest covered preventive care service.

Beneficiaries receive coverage for the new "Welcome to Medicare" (WTM) exam only once in their lifetime - and only within the first six months after joining Medicare. Employ these three tactics to keep track of your new Medicare patients:

 
1. Ask patients to sign an advance beneficiary notice (ABN). Because many seniors head south for the winter, practices often have no way to keep track of whether the patient already received the WTM exam somewhere else. A signed ABN guarantees that the patient will pay out-of-pocket if Medicare denies the claim.

 
2. Add a note to patients' files when they've had the exam already. This simple act will prevent you from accidentally performing the WTM exam again for patients who have already had it.

 
3. Inquire about the patient's exam status multiple times. When the patient makes his appointment, you should ask if he's just enrolled in Medicare, when that enrollment became effective, and if he's had the WTM exam anywhere else. Then when the patient comes in for his visit, the front-desk staff, as well as the doctor, should ask the same questions.