medical billing transcription supplier information

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- In a move that could speed the development of a uniform electronic billing standard for pharmacy services, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores has joined the X12 Pharmacy Advisory Panel.

NACDS announced its decision last month, becoming the sixth pharmacy organization to join the panel. The group already includes the American Pharmacists Association, the National Community Pharmacists Association, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

X12 is an organization accredited by the American National Standards Institute to develop uniform standards for electronic data exchange, including such health insurance claims as professional pharmacy claims. The panel was launched in 2002 to promote a single billing standard for professional pharmacy services, based on the same EDI claims format--known by the unwieldy title of ASC X12N 837--that physicians and all other health care professionals use. Advancing community pharmacy's importance as a provider of services to help manage patients' therapeutic outcomes.

* Integrating pharmacy into national organizations and widely used coding systems that have been developed to allow all other health care providers to document their professional services, and bill payers for those services.

* Supporting compensation for pharmacists' professional services.

NACDS' decision to join has been a while in coming. Mary Ann Wagner, vice president of pharmacy regulatory affairs for NACDS, indicated in an interview late last year that the organization might join the X12 group to boost its chances for developing a single, standardized electronic billing procedure, despite some reservations. Those reservations hinged on fears that X12 could classify certain disease state management services already performed by pharmacists as medical benefits, instead of pharmacy benefits, potentially denying pharmacists the right to bill payers for those services.

However, the expanded effort by the panel to promote pharmacists' therapeutic efforts--and payment for those efforts--was apparently enough to allay NACDS' concerns.

"NACDS has joined the X12 Pharmacy Advisory Panel to help expand chain pharmacies' electronic billing for professional services to all possible health care payers," said Roy Bussewitz, vice president of managed care and telecommunications at NACDS.

In addition, Wagner, Bussewitz and other NACDS staffers likely were reassured by the composition of the chain drug industry leaders who have agreed to serve as the organization's representatives on the X12 panel. All three have developed solid reputations as champions of an expanded role for community pharmacists and of payment for their patient care services. The group includes Anthony Provenzano, manager of clinical programs for Albertsons; Rebecca Chater, group manager of clinical services for, Kerr Drug; and Jean-Venable "Kelly" R. Goode, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Pharmacy and a shared faculty member with Ukrop's Super Market Pharmacy.

# posted by Medical Information : 12:00 AM