In this episode, we’re pleased to welcome back two of BESLER’s reimbursement experts, Jeff Wolf, Director of Reimbursement Software, and Christina Brown, Director of Reimbursement Services, to give us a glimpse into BESLER’s upcoming Reimbursement Symposium that is being hosted on August 23rd, starting at 11:30 AM ET for current Easy Work Papers customers and then open to everyone at 1 PM ET.
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Learn how to listen to The Hospital Finance Podcast® on your mobile device.Highlights of this episode include:
- About the Reimbursement Symposium
- The Domino Effect
- How Geographic Reclass works
- Medicare Settlement
- What’s New with BESLER | OMNIA
Kelly Wisness: Hi, this is Kelly Wisness. Welcome back to the award-winning Hospital Finance Podcast. We’re pleased to welcome back two of BESLER’s reimbursement experts. Jeff Wolf, director of reimbursement software, and Christina Brown, director of reimbursement services. In this episode, Jeff and Christina will give us a glimpse into BESLER’s upcoming Reimbursement Symposium that we’re hosting on Wednesday, August 23rd, starting at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time for current Easy Work Papers customers and then open to everyone at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Welcome back and thank you for joining us, Jeff and Christina.
Jeff Wolf: Thank you. It’s a pleasure being here.
Christina Brown: Thanks, Kelly.
Kelly: Well, let’s go ahead and jump in then. Can you tell us a little bit about what the Reimbursement Symposium is all about, Jeff?
Jeff: Sure. The Reimbursement Symposium is really about providing something back to the reimbursement community and to our clients. This year, we’ll have sessions on the best practices for processing Cost Report settlement, education sessions on the domino effect, geographic reclass, and then we’ll also have our software product review and status updates. Of course, we’ll provide CPE for the education sessions to participants, and we do this all at no charge to show our clients and the reimbursement community that we appreciate their continued support. And of the efforts that we do.
Christina: Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. I’ll just add that something you may not know is that this is an extended webinar to what we’ve provided to our clients in past years. And while our settlement processing section is only for our Easy Work Papers users, as it will be heavily focused on processing the settlement within our software, this year we have chosen to open up attendance to all reimbursement professionals for our other sections. We do this because we would like others to get the value of the CPEs as well as a peek into what other solutions we have to offer. And if you’re not already aware, not only are we subject matter experts in the areas of reimbursement, but we are also a technology focused firm with a very forward-thinking approach to reimbursement solutions, which you will be hearing more about in the webinar.
Kelly: Sounds like an interesting event. One of the CPE topics that will be discussed at the Symposium is the domino effect. Can you explain that?
Christina: Yes, great question. I’d be happy to offer some explanation. I feel this will be a good section for those that are familiar with the Cost Report, but perhaps haven’t quite connected all the dots or “dominoes.” This section will give our audience insight as to how the Cost Report is all interconnected. And why what you do in one worksheet will impact others and how each worksheet’s relationship with other worksheets is important. So, Jeff, do you have anything else to elaborate on this?
Jeff: Yeah. The only thing I would add is that the Cost Report, as you said, has a lot of interdependent data. So, when you make a change in one spot on the Cost Report, there’s what we would call downstream effect. And we like to call those, it’s like knocking over the domino, so you knock the first one, then the second one, third one. And it’s that effect from that first interaction. So, we’ll discuss what those interactions and relationships are between some of the data and multiple worksheets on the Cost Report. And we’ll also talk about some best practices to ensure that you don’t miss any of these interrelationships in your documentation.
Kelly: That should be an interesting topic. How does a geographic reclass work? Jeff, do you want to start first?
Jeff: Sure. Basically, the Medicare DRG payment that you receive is adjusted on the Wage Index factor that you have in the CBSA that your hospital is in. Sometimes that individual provider’s Wage Index does not match the CBSA that they’re in. Usually, their Wage Index is higher. And this can usually be traced to the fact that this hospital is located near another CBSA. And they’re competing with that other CBSA for staff, which drives up their wage cost. And so, the geographic reclass is really a way to identify that your hospital really is more like that other geographic area and to give you a reclass to that other area, even though physically you stay where you are, of course. But per regulations, you get reclassed to the other area, and you benefit from the higher Wage Index in that other area.
Christina: Thanks, Jeff. The only thing I’ll add is, as you can see, we’re being quite diverse in our offerings as reimbursement is a very diverse topic. I mentioned that we will cover current software for our users, and I’ll be covering the domino effect, which we just discussed, which is geared directly to the Cost Report. Cody will be covering the geographic reclass, which is related to the Wage Index on the Cost Report. But if you’re familiar as Jeff said, it’s a separate process. That being said, I believe Jeff did a really good job of summarizing the geographic reclass.
Kelly: Seems like a very complex topic. You mentioned that the current Easy Work Papers users will get an extra session about the settlement. Can you please elaborate on this, Christina?
Christina: Oh, sure thing. Andrew Kinnaman will be presenting on this topic to our Easy Work Papers users. And if you’re familiar with cost reports, you are well aware that the Settlement is a critical area of the Cost Report. And since the cost report is something most providers only complete once a year, this critical area is one we often get asked about as providers are working through their college reports in Easy Work Papers. Andrew will be walking through the process of settlement and the Easy Work Papers software and showcasing the various tools in Easy Work Papers for processing and analyzing the settlement.
Jeff: I would also add that Andrew will be focusing on best practices that we’ve developed over the last 20 years of using Easy Work Papers, making sure that our clients have the benefit of our knowledge and experience.
Kelly: That should be a great session. And lastly, what’s new with OMNIA, Jeff?
Jeff: Well, we’re very excited. We’ve been working on BESLER | OMNIA for several years, as many of you know. And it’s a huge leap forward in the way reimbursement cost reporting is– your workload is done. It fully integrates the data analysis, work papers, and the cost report submission. So, we’ll be demonstrating the functionality of OMNIA for anyone who has not seen it during the Symposium. We’ll also be discussing the direction in the future of BESLER | OMNIA. I think that BESLER | OMNIA is really going to change the way that reimbursement professionals operate and do their daily work. With BESLER | OMNIA, again, we’re building this fully integrated platform. And what that really means is that you’ll be able to address all of your reimbursement issues and needs and process them through a single platform. But you’ll have to wait for the Symposium to hear a little bit more about it from our CEO, Jonathan Besler.
Kelly: Thank you so much for joining us today, Jeff and Christina, and for sharing this sneak peek into BESLER’s upcoming Reimbursement Symposium that we’re presenting live on August 23rd, 2023. As a bonus, you can earn up to two CPE credits. Thanks again, Jeff and Christina.
Christina: Thank you so much.
Jeff: Thank you.
Kelly: And thank you all for joining us for this episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. Until next time…
[music] This concludes today’s episode of the Hospital Finance Podcast. For show notes and additional resources to help you protect and enhance revenue at your hospital, visit besler.com/podcasts. The Hospital Finance Podcast is a production of BESLER | SMART ABOUT REVENUE, TENACIOUS ABOUT RESULTS.
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