Throughout the 21st century, one of the greatest alterations that our civilization has experienced is the growth of the healthcare sector. Healthcare has grown immensely throughout recent years, and in 2021, one of the most imperative changes has been the increase of physical therapy to treat ailments of all types. As physical therapy has become increasingly more prevalent within the medical field, one of the greatest issues that practices have had to deal with is the need to comply with Medicare’s guidelines. Medicare has relatively stringent guidelines for patients to be funded for PT, and in order to ensure that your practice fulfills Medicare physical therapy guidelines, it is important to understand the various rules and regulations. There are a myriad of different guidelines set out by Medicare that your practice needs to adhere to; however, they can be extremely confusing to navigate if you do not understand exactly what to do. When you understand the various elements associated with Medicare guidelines, your practice will be in a much better position to effectively comply and ensure that your patients are able to get the best care possible.
What are Medicare Progress Notes?
When your practice starts handling Medicare guidelines for physical therapy, the first element you will have to deal with is filling out progress notes. Progress notes are an imperative element to ensure that your practice can accept Medicare insurance. Without them, you will not be able to accept Medicare, which is why it is so imperative to ensure that you know how to handle them and that you can adhere to all of their standards. The first element when working with progress notes is to ensure that your patients’ services are deemed medically necessary. Medically necessary is broken down into two different camps: either your patients’ treatments are helping to maintain a physical problem and stopping it from getting worse or that you are helping a patient to make active strides towards improving an issue. Once you have ensured that your patient falls into either of these categories, you can then focus on other elements of progress notes.
What Should You Include in Medicare Progress Notes?
There are numerous elements that you need to include in your Medicare progress notes to ensure that your patients are able to continue to work with your practice. First, you need to ensure that you fill out progress notes once every ten visits, or your Medicare payments will be rescinded and you will also have to pay penalty charges. Next, it is important to ensure that your progress reports reflect a multitude of other facets of progression, such as reporting objective measurements that show improvement, plans to continue treatment, changes in goals, signature and credentials of all clinicians, and dates included for the entire report. When you have all of these elements included in your progress notes, you will be sure to have a more successful experience working with Medicare.
Final Thoughts
When your physical therapy practice works with Medicare patients, it is critical to adhere to all standards. Complying with Medicare’s progress notes can be challenging, but if you know what to do, you will be able to have greater achievement.
