Physician Time Studies

Conducting Physician Time Studies are one way to improve hospital reimbursement. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement is mostly cut and dried - MS-DRGs and APCs. But, there are a few areas where special payments can be made to the hospital; ESRD, Medicare Bad Debt, GME, Transplant, DSH, UPL - if you qualify and have supporting documentation.

Physician Time Studies must be done every quarter for at least two weeks. Documenting the amount of Administrative and Graduate Teaching Time Physicians provide to the Hospital can better reflect the true Average Hourly Wage (AHW) and Teaching cost for Interns, Residents and Fellows. Increasing the AHW improves MS-DRG, APC and other Wage Index adjusted payments. GME is based on the number of FTEs the hospital trains, but it also has a cost component that can be increased with an appropriate allocation of Physician teaching costs.

A CampbellWilson client in Texas began their Physician Time Studies in 2001. As a result they saw an increase in reimbursement from both Medicare and Medicaid. They began the Physician Time Studies using small books where the physicians entered their time for each day of the time study. The books were turned into the Reimbursement department who then manually keyed in the Physician's time to a database. Reports could then be run for each time study and for the year to document the allocation of Physician's expenses to Hospital Administration and Graduate Education. These additions to the cost report provide $7 to $10 million per year to their Total Reimbursement.

In 2008, they started moving to a Web based system to collect the Physician's time. The web based application provides the benefits of eliminating the cost of printing the books, and entering the Physicians' time in the database. Other benefits of the web-time study include:

• More physicians complete their time (we track physicians who are not participating on a daily basis, instead of waiting until the end of the study to find out who did not turn in a book, or did not complete it)
• Eliminate the potential of data-entry errors (can cause adverse Audit adjustment)

In October of 2008, all physicians will be using the Web application to enter their time and we are expecting improved participation and better support for the amounts claimed on the Cost Report. In the coming months, Transplant Physicians and staff will begin moving to the Web application to document Pre-Transplant time. Allied Health and Social Work programs are also looking to Web Time Studies to document their cost reimbursement.

CampbellWilson can create a Time Study to your needs and pick up some of that money on the table

For more information, contact us at 214.373.7077 to speak to one of our experienced consultants or click the Contact Us link at the top right of the page.

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