Articles

By John Wallace, MDPresident of IEPC Anthem Health plan initiated a practice of “no pay” for ER diagnostic E and M code 99285 for discharged ER patients sometime in 2020. That the Health Plan’s new Dirty Trick, simply not pay anything. Ironically, while the health plans are committing fraud, they are accusing the doctors of fraud. Anthem has referred Emergency … Read More

By John G. Holstein, Director of Business Development, Zotec Partners As emergency medicine recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the specialty cannot overlook all the changes that occurred over the last two and a half years. What emergency medicine practices can do is move forward with a greater sense of stability about their futures and financial standing with the right processes, … Read More

Written by Valerie Norton, IEPC Member and President-Elect, California ACEPand Elena Lopez-Gusman, Executive Director – California ACEP California ACEP had a busy year with critical issues of pandemic, workforce, payment threats, and mental health boarding. Here is a summary of some of the legislative activity that was Valerie Norton IEPC Member and President-Elect, California ACEP Elena Lopez-Gusman Executive Director – … Read More

Written byRobert McNamara, MD The AAEM Physician Group suit against Envision (EmCare) is a momentous event for our specialty and our patients. (1) Every EM physician needs to understand this filing and to encourage their colleagues to join in the fight against corporate control. The future of EM is at stake. AAEM is our best hope as no one else … Read More

Written by Andy SelesnickChair of Health Care Litigation at Buchalter Health insurance companies spend tremendous amounts of time, energy, and money to create policies that result in them not paying providers. For both in and out-of-network emergency physicians, Anthem’s latest is something else. Over a year ago, Anthem’s Special Investigative Unit (SIU) began looking at emergency physician E&M codes and … Read More

Originally published by the San Diego Union Tribune on January 23, 2022 By Paul SissonVideography By Nelvin C. Cepeda, John Kelley, Sam Hodgson Dr. Clay Whiting, IEPC member, was featured in Front-Line Voices with the San Diego Union Tribune. Here is an excerpt of the article in the San Diego Union Tribune. On Dec. 31, Dr, Clayton Whiting was feeling … Read More

Written by Roneet Lev, MDExecutive Director, IEPC I had the honor of discharging a 23-year-old patient with autism, let’s call him Austin, who presented to the emergency department on a 5150 psychiatric hold due to violent behavior. There were no locked mental health beds in the area and so Austin remained in our emergency department for two weeks. Austin awoke … Read More