Federal District Judge Terrance Boyle refused to accept a deferred prosecution agreement between the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina and WakeMed Health and Hospitals of Raleigh, N.C., on Jan. 17 that would allow WakeMed to settle criminal allegations of falsely billing Medicare for cardiac procedures.

Cardiology practices have always faced fairly distinctive coding and billing challenges. Rapidly declining reimbursement for key servicesincluding nuclear medicine, cath labs and consultationsnow makes it imperative for cardiology practices to capture and collect every legitimate charge.

Coding and documentation is often the chink in a facilitys armor. Issues such as improper documentation, overcoding and a lack of communication between coders and physicians can often steer facilities into a coding rut, said Linda Gates-Striby, CCS-P, compliance manager at the Care Group in Indianapolis, during a presentation Tuesday at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) scientific sessions.

Cardiology practices have always faced distinctive coding and billing challenges. Today, rapidly declining reimbursement makes it imperative for practices to collect every legitimate charge, requiring the assistance health IT solutions.

Infinitt North America, a developer of Web-based RIS, PACS and advanced visualization solutions, has formed a business partnership with Malvern, Pa.-based Great Valley Technologies to offer a RIS/PACS with integrated billing capabilities.

A compendium of the business intelligence required to launch a CCTA service