Summit mailed out brochures announcing August dates for a seminar titled Recovery Audit Contractors and Medicare Audits. This program had previously been titled The RACs Are Here. Brochures mailed to MI, OH and PA contained erroneous CE information regarding credits available for AAPC accredited coders. The CE statement included an AAPC index number linked, in fact, to a different program.

We here in Summit’s CE department deeply apologize for the error and for any confusion this may have caused any of our valued clients. We remind AAPC certified coders to always obtain a copy of the authorized AAPC certificate of completion at the conclusion of any seminar you attend in order to guarantee you have the correct AAPC index number for your records. If you have any questions regarding the August presentations of Recovery Audit Contractors please email us at ceinfo@summit-education.com.

Summit is proud of its reputation as a national leader in delivering high-quality educational products and services for today’s professionals including our coding and compliance programs. These programs carry approvals and offer continuing education credits from many national associations and organizations including AAMA, AAPC, AHIMA, NAB, NASBA, and PAHCOM. These program titles include:

• Coding and Billing
• HIPAA (Compliance)
• HIPAA (and Medical Records)
• Insurance Billing, Denials & Audits
• Medicare Audit Contractors
• HITECH Compliance

Again we humbly apologize for any confusion we may have caused and look forward to serving your continuing education and professional development needs for years to come!

-Summit Professional Education

As expected, July 13th’s HITECH Final Rule issuance has brought about a new round of questions and concerns regarding EHR. Our HITECH program, taught by Donna Jennings, MBA, CPHQ, has been updated to include only the most recent information — we understand that even a single piece of out-of-date information is harmful with such sweeping changes.

By meeting eligibility criteria in 2011, you’ll position your organization to receive substantial incentive payments — $36 Billion is set aside for such incentives. Don’t let the HITECH Act learning curve block you from this funding… our HITECH Workshop can help!

Our HITECH Workshop provides you with:

• Detailed overview of Meaningful Use & HITECH Act
• Updated (as of this week!) summary of incentive eligibility criteria
• Methods to overcoming challenges of implementing EHR: financial, existing systems and aggressive time lines set by the 2009 ARRA
• Donna Jennings’ working understanding of HITECH and how to navigate the new terrain
• And much more!

Are there certain areas of the HITECH Act that are of the most concern to you?  Leave us a comment and we’ll pass your thoughts onto Donna Jennings — help us bring you the content you need!

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: rethinking mental illness.

For the first time in 16 years, the American Psychiatric Association is revising its essential dictionary, formally titled “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” The book is used widely by mental health professionals to classify and diagnose illnesses. The proposed revisions have been a decade in the making, among them: a single category called autism spectrum disorders that would incorporate Asperger’s syndrome; a category called behavioral addictions, in which gambling would be the sole disorder; a risk syndromes category to help identify earlier stages of disorders like dementia and psychosis; and a recognition of binge eating disorder.

The draft has been posted online and will be reviewed and refined over the next two years.

For some perspective on the proposals and their implications, I’m joined by Dr. Alan Schatzberg. He’s president of the American Psychiatric Association. He is also chair of psychiatry at Stanford University. And Dr. Allen Frances, he’s former chief of psychiatry at the Duke University Medical Center. He led the last effort to revise the manual.

Gentlemen, thank you both for being with us.

And, Dr. Schatzberg, to you first. Why is this manual so important?

DR. ALAN SCHATZBERG, president, American Psychiatric Association: Well, it is used by — as you pointed out, Judy, by practitioners around the world to diagnose potential patients, people who come in for treatment with specific complaints, and to classify them as having one or another disorder.

It becomes the common language that mental health practitioners use to describe patients, so that we can agree on a diagnosis, very similar to cardiologists talking to an internist, saying the patient has had a myocardial infarction, or what we call a heart attack. We need to have agreed-upon diagnoses and criteria for making those diagnoses if we’re going to be able to take care of patients.

Continue Reading on PBS NewsHour Website

Here are a few links for reference:

• DSM V Website
• Psych.org Article
• WrongPlanet.net Article
• PsychCentral.com Article: A look at the DSM V draft