Table of Contents

Contact Your Members Of Congress on Temporary Medicare Ambulance Relief

2007 AAA Medicare Rate Calculator & Forecasting Tool Now Available

Submit Your Ambulance Cost Survey Today

Reminder: Details of Next Ambulance Open Door Forum

Clarification of "Monitoring" in SCT Section of Medicare Final Rule

Contact Your Members of Congress on Temporary Medicare Ambulance Relief

Congress is in our nation's capital this week to address unfinished business including possibly a fix to the physician fee schedule and Medicare provider relief. If you have not already done so, please write to your Members of Congress on the temporary Medicare increase of 5% for 2007 and 2008 for all ambulance service providers. It is critical that Members of Congress hear from their ambulance service providers on this matter.

To write a letter using the AAA online letter writing tool, please go to: http://capwiz.com/the-aaa/home/ . You can also access the system through the AAA homepage at http://www.the-aaa.org/ and clicking on "Write Your Members of Congress". The system will fax the letters to your Members of Congress for you! It should only take a few minutes to complete.

Over 1,500 letters have been sent from ambulance service professionals to Members of Congress. However, if we are to raise the profile of this issue, we need every AAA member contact to send letters. Please also forward this e-mail your staff and ask that they also write letters. The more letters the better!

.

2007 AAA Medicare Rate Calculator & Forecasting Tool Now Available

The 2007 version of the "AAA Medicare Rate Calculator & Forecasting Tool" is now available on the AAA website and is free to AAA members. The Forecasting Tool is designed to assist AAA members in calculating and verifying Medicare ambulance fee schedule rates and in developing projections for future Medicare reimbursement. We strongly recommend prior to the beginning of 2007 to compare the rates published by your Medicare carrier or fiscal intermediary with those of the Tool. This will help ensure there are no discrepancies in the published rates and that your operation is receiving the correct reimbursement amount.

The rates of the Medicare Rate Calculator & Forecasting Tool take into account the ambulance relief included in the "Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act" (MMA). The rates also reflect any recent Medicare policy changes or fee schedule adjustments for 2007 including the 4.3% inflation update. All you need to do is enter a zip code and the Tool will automatically do all the calculations for you.

To access the Tool, go to the AAA website at www.the-aaa.org and click on the link entitled "2007 Medicare Rate & Forecasting Tool". You can also access the Tool at: http://www.the-aaa.org/industryissues/reimbursement/2007MedicareRateCalculator.htm . You will be asked your username and password to be able to download the file.

Submit Your Ambulance Cost Survey Today

While the deadline was yesterday for submitting ambulance cost surveys, Quantria Strategies will continue to accept surveys submitted by December 8. The survey is open to all AAA members and we strongly encourage your operation to complete and submit an ambulance cost survey. The study is essential so that the Association will have data to compare to the results of the ambulance cost study being conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is expected to release the results of their study early next year. Please submit your survey by December 8.

The AAA contracted with Quantria Strategies, LLC to conduct the survey and only their representatives, John O'Hare and Judy Xanthopoulos, and our data analyst, Chris Hogan, will see the individual data. Participation is voluntary, of course, but responses from operations such as yours are critical if the survey is to accurately reflect the experiences across the range and diversity of all providers. Please therefore take the time to complete and submit a survey.

Any and all responses you provide to assist in this effort will be CONFIDENTIAL and not shared with the AAA leadership or staff, any private organization or government entity. Our data analyst will only report information in the aggregate.

To complete this survey, please follow these instructions:

•  Access the Internet website for the survey at www.ambulancecoststudy.com and click on "Survey" on the left hand side of the homepage;

•  You will be directed to the survey log-in and asked to provide a username and password. The login information is provided below;

Username: AAAMEMBER

Password: 10001

•  Download the survey, which is an Excel spreadsheet, on to your computer;

•  Compete the survey to the best of your ability; and,

•  Once it is completed; e-mail the survey to info@ambulancecoststudy.com no later than December 8, 2006.

For those AAA members who received a letter, e-mail or phone notification about being part of the random sample and have yet to submit a survey, please use the username and password contained in the e-mail or letter to access the survey.

We hope you will take the time to participate in this important project. With your help, we will be able to provide the Congress with information necessary to ensure that your organization is fairly and adequately compensated for providing critical, life-saving ambulance services to Medicare patients. If you have any questions, please e-mail John O'Hare or Judy Xanthopoulos at: info@ambulancecoststudy.com .

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Reminder: Details of Next Ambulance Open Door Forum

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ( CMS ) announced that the next Ambulance Open Door Forum will be held on Tuesday, December 19 at 2:00 p.m. (eastern). To participate in the Forum, dial 1-800-837-1935 and provide the operator with the conference ID number of 7362106 and your name, organization name and the state from which you are calling. Below are more details on the Forum.

CMS Ambulance Open Door Forum

Date: Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Time: 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. (eastern)

Conference Call Number: 1-800-837-1935

Conference ID: of 7362106

Conference Leaders: Dr. Bill Rogers/Dr. Charlotte Yeh/Natalie Highsmith

TTY Communications Relay Services are available for the hearing impaired. For TTY services dial 7-1-1 or 1-800-855-2880 and for Internet Relay services click here http://www.consumer.att.com/relay/which/index.html . A relay communications assistant will help.

ENCORE: Call Number 1-800-642-1687; Conference ID Number of 7362106.

"Encore" is a recording of this call that can be accessed by dialing 1-800-642-1687 and entering the Conference ID number of 7362106. You can access the recording of the call from Tuesday, December 19 after 5:00 p.m. (eastern) through Friday, December 22.

Clarification of "Monitoring" in SCT Section of Medicare Final Rule

In the recent Medicare final rule, the definition for SCT was clarified to state the medically necessary monitoring of SCT level medications and devices alone qualifies as an SCT level service. Previously, some carriers were downcoding claims for SCT to ALS 1 or 2 if there was no medication or other intervention such as changing ventilator settings administered. Now, with the final rule, either active treatment interventions or the monitoring of SCT level medications and devices by the SCT qualified personnel is considered SCT level of service.

_____________________________________________
This message was intended to be viewed in HTML. If you are unable to view HTML with your e-mail application, please visit (http://www.the-aaa.org/Publications/E-Update/12_06_06-GA.htm)

You are receiving this E-Update because you signed up to receive communications from AAA, to be removed reply to this email using the "reply" address.
American Ambulance Association - 8201 Greensboro Drive, Suite 300 - McLean, VA 22102

Copyright 2006, American Ambulance Association. No material can be reproduced or forwarded to individuals outside of your company without the express written permission of the publisher.