Tag: Jeff Baird

AMARILLO, Texas – With the roller coaster of vaccine mandates and the uptick in audits, legal issues are keeping HME providers on their toes, say Jeff Baird and Denise Leard. Baird and Leard, both health care attorneys with Brown & Fortunato, gave HME News a look into the latest developments on these two topics.  Vaccine variables The long story short, Baird says, is if you’re an HME company, you have to worry about whether or not your employees are visiting a health care facility...

AMARILLO, Texas - CMS's recent reforms to the Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Law will benefit HME providers, but “not a whole lot,” says healthcare attorney Jeff Baird. The agency in late November published two final rules, culminating a years-long process of modernizing regulations to better support coordinated and value-based care, but they mostly impact physicians and hospitals. Baird, chairman of the Health Care Group at Brown & Fortunato, drilled down to how the...

AMARILLO, Texas - With Round 2021 a wild card, health care attorney Jeff Baird is advising his clients to hold off on making any serious financial decisions for as long as possible.CMS's latest round of competitive bidding is due to start Jan. 1, with payment amounts announced this summer and contract suppliers announced this fall, but industry stakeholders are trying to make the case to the agency that the bids they submitted last fall are outdated.“It's really difficult to see how competitive...

Historically, Medicare payments for health care have been based on the fee-for-service (FFS) model—that is, Medicare pays for the service regardless of the patient outcome. This model results in (i) providers not coordinating with each other and (ii) expenditure of money without evidence of tangible results. With 78 million baby boomers retiring at the rate of 10,000 per day, the FFS model is not sustainable. As such, Medicare is pushing providers away from the FFS model…and toward the collaborative...

YARMOUTH, Maine - Industry stakeholders are watching to see how the Office of Inspector General and CMS respond to provider self-audits on CPAP supplies.About a year and a half ago, more than 80 providers were asked to conduct self-audits looking back six years, and their responses ran the gamut from not responding, to reporting an overpayment and sending a check, according to Jeff Baird.“It's going to be interesting,” said Baird, chairman of the Healthcare Group at Brown & Fortunato....

ATLANTA - HME providers need to make a “tough call” on how they plan to handle an upcoming gap period in the competitive bidding program, healthcare attorney Jeff Baird told Medtrade attendees on Monday afternoon.“This is kind of a new area,” said Baird, the chairman of the Healthcare Group at Brown & Fortunato in Amarillo, Texas. “What do we do during the gap period? The short answer is, I don't know. I have specific ideas and suggestions, and have knowledge, but this...

ATLANTA - Ask Medtrade Education Director Jeff Baird how he and his colleagues develop the most relevant education for HME providers at this week's conference and expo, and he'll tell you it comes down to timing.“The Medtrade Education Advisory Board spends substantial time debating what is relevant to HME providers today and into the future,” he said. “The EAB recognizes that the HME industry today is different from what it was a few years ago, and in a few years it will be different...

Ask Medtrade Education Director Jeff Baird how he and his colleagues develop the most relevant topics for HME providers at the annual Georgia World Congress Center conference and expo, Oct. 15-17, he will tell you it comes down to timing.“The Medtrade Education Advisory Board spends substantial time debating what is relevant to HME providers today and into the future,” he said. “The EAB recognizes that the HME industry today is different from what it was a few years...

YARMOUTH, Maine - The Medicare landscape could look very different on Jan. 1, 2019, but industry watchers don't expect any knee-jerk reactions from HME providers.In a recent proposed rule, CMS outlined its plans to implement an “any willing provider” provision when the current competitive bidding contracts expire on Dec. 31, allowing any Medicare-enrolled provider to serve beneficiaries while it overhauls the program.“The guns will go off on Jan. 1, but I don't expect anyone to...

WASHINGTON - A more relaxed Stark Law could be a double-edged sword for HME providers, says healthcare attorney Jeff Baird.In a request for information published in the Federal Register on June 25, the Department of Health and Human Services asks for feedback on “how to address any undue regulatory impact and burden of the physician self-referral law.”Here's what Baird, chairperson of The Health Care Group at Amarillo, Texas-based Brown & Fortunato, had to say about why HHS's decision...