The Pennsylvania Medical Society has been contacted by member practices who are currently going through a Medicare Meaningful Use audit by Figliozzi and Company. There have been some issues brought to our attention and we would like to see if any other practices have been experiencing this.
First, any measure that was attested to with a “yes or no” answer must be corroborated with a screen print as supporting documentation confirming that your system did or did not complete the measure. However, the screen print MUST have the EHR company logo printed somewhere on the document or it will not be accepted. Secondly, the Security/Risk Analysis, the practice must provide an actual security risk analysis that was conducted including who conducted the test (i.e., IT Vendor) date of the test, time of the test and the result of the test in report format. A check list is not enough and will NOT suffice or be accepted. From what we understand this risk analysis report must have been done on each computer within the practice.
Article clearly shows that we have a free market system that works. 2 trillion spent by people that can afford healthcare – fair market. If you don’t have the money for the best mechanic, you will get sub standard repairs. The article below fails to state that the money spent SAVED HIS LIFE! If he was on medicare, he would not have gotten the best help and may have died.
Under this administration, my business has been “blessed” with ever increasing costs of Doing Business.Hence, my “fair share” has become my unfair burden with me spending almost 65% of every dollar i make for some tax or fee imposed on me. These blessings have increased my cost of goods as the trickle down economics eventually reaches us all. As my suppliers, their suppliers and their suppliers become burdened with the higher costs, they invariable trickle them down to us. Now can we raise our prices and expect customers to keep purchasing? no of course not. So we continue to absorb the extra costs that eat away at our profits. What does this mean long term? No growth, less customers and less profits – so what do we do? we lay people off & spend less – how great for the economy!
Small businesses are the lifeblood of this country – don’t let anyone else tell you different. Wallmart, Amazon Home Depot and others are not breathing life into local economies. Nor are their so called “profits” to be believed. Everyone is looking at total sales not profit! Yea we did 15% more then last year – a billion dollars extra – great wonderful rock on!!! But wait – how much profit did you make? Profit? we don’t need no stinking profit!@ Thats right whilst retail numbers may appear to be on the rise, the cost of doing business aka profits are WAYYYY down. Hence holiday sales that everyone like to watch are meaningless because they are all discounted prices meaning less profits. Less profits means less people to hire and so on.
2. My property value magically has risen so i can pay more property taxes but guess what? My appraisal value went DOWN meaning banks wont lend me / refinance me – can someone explain this?
3. Water bill has magically quadruples with the NEW meters installed – that’s right my water bill for over 15 years has never been more than $220 – now since the new meters have been installed it has risen to over $475 with every bill going up! Magically when you complain an $8 an hour person says “you have a leak” yea ok.
4. New bill in teh mail – city wants me to pay insurance on the pipes OUTSIDE my buildings and houses in case they break. HUH? is this not what the water and sewer and taxes are for? Double dip into my pocket.
5. Obama care – need i go on?
6. Gas prices – oh yea lets drive an electric car. Really? what about the delivery companies that bring me my products and supplies? Oh we forgot about them – UPS, USPS (which should be shut down – another post), Fedex etc.. all have raised their prices AND added a fuel surcharge guess who pays this?
7. Unregulated competition from other countries has driven up the cost of raw materials such as protein, dairy, wheat, gas etc….
That’s just a few of my ever increasing burdens against a backdrop of high unemployment and lower sales – guess what I have to do? Thats correct – let people go, spend less. Great how this makes the economy go round no?
Well mr president and all those that believe in his redistribution of wealth aka socialism – when i release my last employee and close down – who will feed the voracious government then?
A growing number of shooting enthusiasts are creating legal trusts to acquire machine guns, silencers or other items whose sale is restricted by federal law — a mechanism that bypasses the need to obtain law enforcement approval or even undergo criminal background checks.
The trusts, called gun trusts, are intended to allow the owners of the firearms to share them legally with family members and to pass them down responsibly. They have gained in popularity, gun owners say, in part because they may offer protection from future legislation intended to prohibit the possession or sale of the firearms.
But because of a loophole in federal regulations, buying restricted firearms through a trust also exempts the trust’s members from requirements that apply to individual buyers, including being fingerprinted, obtaining the approval of a chief local law enforcement officer and undergoing a background check.
Lawyers who handle the trusts and gun owners who have used them say that a majority of customers who buy restricted firearms through trusts do not do so to avoid such requirements. And most gun dealers continue to require background checks for the representative of the trust who picks up the firearm. But not all do.
Christopher J. Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer who embarked on a weeklong assault on law enforcement officers this month that ended with his death on Feb. 12, said in a rambling 11,000-word manifesto that he had used a gun trust to buy silencers and a short-barreled rifle from a gun store in Nevada without a background check.
Referring to a computer program available from the personal finance software company Quicken, Mr. Dorner wrote, “I was able to use a trust account that I created on quicken will maker and a $10 notary charge at a mailbox etc. to obtain them legally.” Mr. Dorner was not a felon and probably would have passed a background check had he received one.
Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which enforces firearms regulations, said that applications filed with the A.T.F. for transfers of restricted firearms to trusts or corporations have more than doubled in the last four years, to more than 39,000 in 2012 from about 15,000 in 2008. He said the increase was largely attributable to the growth in the number of trusts.
Mr. Campbell confirmed that under current regulations, background checks were not required for the buying of restricted firearms through trusts. The agency, he added, was aware of the loophole and was reviewing changes to close it.
Lawyers who prepare gun trusts said requests for the documents had been increasing in recent months as proposals for gun legislation proliferated in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill. They said some gun owners were even creating trusts for nonrestricted firearms like semiautomatic rifles and pistols, hoping to protect them against the specter of future legislation.
The cost of setting up a trust can vary from a small amount for an online form to $100 to $2,500 in lawyers’ fees, depending on location and the type of trust.
The sale and possession of silencers, fully automatic guns manufactured before 1986 and other firearms and accessories that fall under the 1934 National Firearms Act are legal in many states. But the A.T.F. keeps a registry of the firearms and must approve their sale, a process that can take several months, and the buyer must pay a $200 tax.
J. W. Hagan, a computer administrator in Jacksonville, Fla., said he created a trust to buy silencers, which have become popular for target shooting and hunting and can be owned legally in a growing number of states. He said the trust would ensure that if he died, his firearms would remain legal. The trust would also allow his fiancée to use the silencers once the couple married.
“If I didn’t have a trust, she wouldn’t even be able to have the password for my safe,” he said.
Mr. Goldman, who has prepared several thousand gun trusts and teaches courses on their use, said the trusts have many benefits, like ensuring that firearms were passed on responsibly when an owner dies, keeping them from falling into the wrong hands in a difficult divorce or helping to negotiate moves to other states that might have different gun laws.
“There was never a proper way of dealing with firearms with estate planning and whether beneficiaries were appropriate to receive them,” Mr. Goldman said.
Gun owners also turn to trusts, other lawyers who handle them said, because in many jurisdictions, law enforcement officials refuse to sign off on the purchase of restricted firearms, making it difficult or impossible for enthusiasts to buy them as individuals.
Brian Reynolds, a lawyer in Denver, said he had prepared several gun trusts, mostly for people who wanted to buy silencers for long-range target shooting. But in many parts of Colorado, he said, sheriffs and police chiefs will not approve such purchases. “By having a trust, you bypass the need to get that authorization,” Mr. Reynolds said.
Many dealers conduct checks anyway. But others take the government at its word. One dealer, for example, said he did not think he had to run background checks for sales to trusts because Form 4473, the record of the transaction filled out by the dealer and the customer and sent to the A.T.F., specifically lists trust transfers of restricted firearms as an exception to the requirement for background checks.
Bob Irwin, who owns the Gun Store in Las Vegas, said his store always performed background checks for firearm purchases involving trusts — the store has handled three so far this year — but he was aware that some dealers did not.
Excellent video explaining Obama and his backwards conception of our country.
Yes people again our great leaders have failed us and now try to tax their way out of stupidity. Remember paper bags? They decided they were no good for us so we stopped them for plastic bags – NOW they are no good fir us so what do we do? Tax us! .15 cents per un-reusable bad.
ST. LUKE’S-Roosevelt Hospital Center used “billing shenanigans” to bilk taxpayers out of millions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid payments, prosecutors said the hospital admitted Thursday.
St. Luke’s will pay more than $2.3 million in damages and civil penalties to the feds and the state to settle a federal lawsuit, prosecutors said.
U.S Attorney Preet Bharara said the medical center bilked taxpayers.
The Morningside Heights hospital improperly billed Medicare and Medicaid for psychiatric services it provided at an outpatient mental health clinic from 1998 to 2010, according to the suit that was filed and settled Thursday.
“St. Luke’s engaged in billing shenanigans that siphoned millions of taxpayer dollars out of … programs intended to benefit elderly and low-income individuals,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
The hospital said the billing issues “overwhelmingly” date from 1999 to 2002. The hospital is “firmly committed to compliance and integrity in our billing” and cooperated fully with the feds’ review, it said.