Top 5 Things to Know about Medicare for 2017

Many physicians, medical billing service providers and owners of healthcare centers these days are willing to be aware of the most recent announcements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They have geared up for improving different aspects of their routine medical billing services as per overall guidelines from the CMS. The Medicare fee schedule is one of the top five things to know about the Medicare for 2017.

CMS released the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule 2017 in November 2016. If you take note of the CMS releases Medicare physician fee schedule for 2017, then you can make an informed decision and start their step to comply with the Medicare Fee Schedule without any difficulty.  It is the right time to focus on the data source of the latest fees for the nation. Downloadable fee schedule files online for all states nowadays give a wide range of benefits for all visitors to the CMS physician fee schedule webpage.

Medicare part B premiums grasp the attention of medical billing service providers and medical professionals who take part in the medical billing work on their own. The Medicare part B monthly premiums 2017 will be increased from $104.90 to $109 to support the 70% of Medicare beneficiaries throughout the nation. The social security administration announced a low .3% cost of living adjustment. This announcement is the foremost cause for the small increase in the Medicare part B monthly premiums.

The social security administration these days successfully implements the hold harmless provision for the increase of Medicare part B premium. On the other hand, remaining 30% Medicare beneficiaries do not receive the social security benefits and enrol in the Medicare part B in the upcoming days can be directly billed for their Part B premium. They are dually eligible for Medicaid and satisfied with the medical bills paid by the State Medicaid agencies. They also pay an income associated premium. They make up the difference of the hold harmless provision and notice that 10% increase in the monthly premium from the $121.90 to $134.00.

The part B deductible is the major element of the Medicare for 2017. The CMS recently announced that annual deductible for every Medicare part B beneficiary will be $183 in 2017 that is higher when compared to $166 in 2016. However, this deductible does not apply to the Medicare Advantage, prescription drug plans. This is because these deductibles get determined separately.  Non-physician and physician practitioners have to make use of the revised CMS-855R application that is reassignment of benefits application from January 1, 2017 when they not begun using it.

The revised application is available on the official CMS Forms List since April 2016. All Medicare Administrative Contractors will accept revised and current versions of the CMS-855R through the end of the year 2016. You can focus on the comment on the new quality payment program and make a good decision now. Some of the elements under the merit based incentive payment system are advancing care information performance category, groups, quality performance category, low volume threshold, non patient facing, virtual groups and MIPS scoring.