Provider Education and Training Quarterly Meeting, April 17, 2002

Attendees:
Anita Antkowiak, CareFirst of MD; Kim Droboniku, CareFirst of MD; Jason Kerr, CareFirst of MD; Sandra Sigler, CareFirst of MD; Donna Waters, CareFirst of MD; Diane Baker, CareFirst of MD; Krystyna Gallegos, CareFirst of MD; Bill Foster, ST. Agnes HealthCare; Vivian Lade, Atlantic General Hospital; Rebecca Vodak, Atlantic General Hospital; Doris Fabian, Johns Hopkins Hospital; Nigel Jameson, Ultimate Renal Care; Sharon Grahm, CMS; Charlotte Foster, CMS; Priscilla Wray, Georgetown Hospital

Minutes:
Anita Antkowiak of CareFirst of MD Inc. Supervisor of Provider Education and Training; welcomed everyone to the meeting. Round table introductions.

Sharon Grahm introduced the implementation of, Open Door Forums that are presented by CMS. Open Door Forums are a series of public listening sessions open to seniors, Medicare and Medicaid enrollee's, small and large providers, health care workers, state workers and others. For topic, date and time refer to the following address: http://cms.gov/opendoor/schedule.asp

Update to Action Items:
Reviewed action items from 01/16/02 PET meeting. The following items have been closed:

• Change run date of RTP report-Ishwaran confirmed that FISS picks up the prior month statistics, no matter which day of the month report runs.
• ESRD specific Medicare 101 Training Workshop-First ESRD workshop was held on 02/28/02 and will be part of the regular curriculum.
• Medicare Advanced Training Seminar-Training agenda was planned based on feedback from the PET council. The first workshop was successfully held on 03/14/02. It was suggested that billing Emtala and Lifetime Reserve Days be added to this training.
• Training needs survey was mailed to Providers in March and little response was received.

No new action items were introduced at this meeting.

Krystyna Gallegos introduced the members of the Benefit Integrity Program: Adam Weber, Donna Blaschak, Thyngeline Burham.

Jason Kerr discussed procedures for billing unlisted HCPCS and referred to Provider Bulletin 04/18/02.

Status Location Codes: the new locations were reviewed and a handout was distributed. Kim Droboniku and Sandy Sigler reviewed Privacy Act, the tightened procedures when Providers call the customer service line, and reminded members not to include HIC # in email.

Anita Antkowiak: Providers can call Wayne Piotrowski or Ishwaran Ravindranath to begin HIPAA testing.

Discussed updates to our web site, www.marylandmedicare.com: the new pop up box with urgent messages; on line registration and a listing of upcoming workshops and seminars; new improved search engine.

Providers should contact us if they have available space to host a training workshop or seminar. Does anyone have issues to discuss from their contact with the Provider community? There were no issues brought to the table. Bill Foster believes we did a good job getting information out to the Providers and that may be why there were no issues to discuss.

Compliance Issues: it was suggested that Providers might be reluctant to discuss compliance issues with the Intermediary. Sharon Graham reminded us that the Open Door Forums are where Providers can discuss concerns in anonymity. She said that compliance concerns are exactly what the administration wants to know about. These forums allow issues to be brought to the attention of upper management promptly.

The next PET meeting is scheduled for July 17, 2002.