Other hot topics include medical billing dos and don’ts, COPE CE, industry trends and insights and inspirational success stories.

Plus, this conference offers the best networking opportunities because SNAPP attendees uniquely understand each other’s needs and circumstances. In addition to the education, these chances to share ideas with your colleagues are invaluable.

Our Las Vegas conference continues to be one of the most rewarding benefits for our members. We’re excited to announce that SNAPP is offering increased stipends for attending our event in Las Vegas! Get paid to come and receive up to $1000 per attendee, a 40% increase over 2023!

We'd love for you to share this exciting opportunity with your colleagues. Bring someone along and make the most out of this incredible event!

We usually have over 125 attendees and many walk away with the tools to grow their business to higher profits. It’s an invaluable opportunity to connect, learn and grow with fellow professionals.

Join us and make the most of this fantastic opportunity. We cannot wait to see you for these packed days of learning from each other.

Learn more about the meeting here.

The SNAPP Las Vegas Conference will bring you world-class education and renowned speakers with a wealth of knowledge and experience. We’re delighted to present this year’s featured speakers.

Top row (l-r): Dr. Brujic, Dr. DeLoach, Frederic Jouhet; Bottom row (l-r): Dr. Kling, Jared Noble, Dr. Thomas

Mile Brujic, OD, FAAO
Managing Ocular Toxicities in Patients with Cancer: Understanding ADCs and the ECP’s Role in Collaborative Management
Subject: Eye Conditions & Business Management
and
Twelve Innovations in Eye Care that You Need to Know About
Subject: New Diagnostic Technologies and Therapeutics

Joe W. DeLoach, OD, FAAO, Dipl.ABO
Scoring an A in Healthcare Reimbursement
Subject: Medical Billing

Frederic Jouhet
Where Optometry Is Heading
Subject: Industry Trends

Michael Kling, OD
5 Steps from Manager to Leader
Subject: Business Management

Jared Noble
Optimizing Patient Experience
Subject: Business Growth

Craig Thomas, OD
Eyeing Excellence
Subject: Expanding Perspectives, Inspiring Growth

If it hasn’t happened already, it is likely that the next patient wave is flocking in to ensure their kids’ prescriptions are up to date before they go back to school. Don’t panic! There is still time to plan and prepare your practice for the rush. Now is the time to take a couple hours of your admin day to check the following items and delegate to a capable staff member to care for now and through the busy season.

1. Ensure your front office is fully staffed. Demographic errors are one of the main reasons we see a decline in clean claim rates. For example, transposing an “O” for a “0” in the patient’s insurance ID can result in a rejection. This type of rejection takes valuable time away from staff to correct and delays payment. When the busy season hits, it may be beneficial to add additional staff members to the front office team who enter patients’ information into your practice management (PM) system.

2. Track your clean claim rate. Your clean claim rate is the percentage of claims that make it through to the payer without rejection. Rejections can drastically increase during busy times as staff might focus more on speed rather than the quality of checking benefits or data entry into the PM. Rejections are a great indicator that staff is letting errors slip through the cracks. A good rule of thumb is to be at 95% or greater clean claim rate. If you only have access to your rejection percentage, then try keeping that metric under 5%.

3. Ensure that staff is fully trained on running eligibility. Eligibility is imperative to ensure the practice isn’t seeing patients for free. Staff should feel comfortable running eligibility and reading benefits for both medical and vision payers. They should be getting both forms of coverage from the patient and pulling benefits on both. This can help prepare the OD to bill medical insurance when needed. Since the busy season is just getting started, practices still have time to make sure the staff has a solid knowledge base when it comes to this very important role.

Keeping these three things in mind can impact the consistency of your reimbursements significantly. Don’t be afraid to keep staff informed regarding the metrics you are reviewing and tracking. Sometimes, knowing that someone is watching on the back end helps ensure the front end is paying a bit more attention, even during heavy patient volume days.

Reach out to the HELIX team with any other billing questions you have here; we might have the solution for you.

Q: A candidate told us they have a disability. What do we need to do?

A: We recommend asking if they need an accommodation during the application process, but above all, ensure that having this information doesn’t influence your hiring decision. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to provide accommodations to applicants with disabilities if needed to be considered for a job unless the accommodation causes an undue hardship. If the applicant doesn’t need an accommodation, simply continue to focus on the candidate’s skills and abilities relative to the position you’re hiring for.

Employers are prohibited from asking about disabilities before offering an applicant the job. As a best practice, you should be asking all candidates—not just those who disclose a disability or appear to have a disability—whether they can perform the essential functions of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation. This can be as simple as adding a question to your job application.

It’s important to not make assumptions about a candidate’s ability to perform their job based on their disability. If a candidate requests an accommodation to perform the essential functions of their job during the post-offer stage, then you would engage in the interactive process with them to determine what accommodations may be effective.

Editor’s note: Practice Compliance Solutions summarized the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that can have a significant impact on health care policies. Read the full analysis here.

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded Loper v. Raimondo, overturning a 40-year-old ruling—the Chevron Doctrine. This longstanding rule stated that in cases related to federal regulations and compliance, the courts were instructed to defer to the federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of the law. Since these agencies wrote the laws and regulations, it makes sense that they would be the “expert” on interpretation of the rules. Somehow, SCOTUS felt otherwise.

With Chevron gone, compliance and regulatory interpretations have been directed to individual federal, state and local courts. This decision is felt by many to be one of the most significant cases for federal health policy. It could have an impact on all areas of regulation.

For example, what if an employee requests a private entrance to your practice and a private office due to anxiety? Historically, the ADA, which wrote the disability rules, would decide if this was a “reasonable request” based on the individual aspects of your business—one main agency making rules. Now that decision can be made by any federal courts and every state court instead of one agency deciding the rules. Another example could be whether or not you must encrypt patient data. There could be 50 or more such decisions. It could also affect the requirement that most Affordable Care Act health plans cover preventive services and could now mean health care policies for patients, providers or insurers could differ greatly from one area to another.

Health care compliance may have just become as chaotic as the Mad Hatter’s world in Alice in Wonderland.

This ruling reduces the power of executive agencies, endangers numerous regulations and transfers authority from the executive branch to Congress and the courts. Here are just a few of the agencies that eye care professionals and business owners encounter:

• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
• Health and Human Services (most things health care)
• Office of Civil Rights (HIPAA)
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (most things HR)
• Food and Drug Administration
• National Institute of Health (health care policies)
• Center for Disease Control (more health care policies)
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
• Americans With Disabilities Act
• Federal Trade Commission

The full impact of the Chevron ruling will depend on how individual courts apply new standards in specific cases—such as eyeglasses and contact lens rules under the FTC, discrimination opinions, federal vision plan challenges, open interpretations of the No Surprise Act, the upcoming HIPAA Omnibus Rule and Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices. Predicted results include massive court backlogs, inconsistent rulings, variable policies based on where you practice and a significant increase in lawsuits against providers and payers.

The Supreme Court’s decision fundamentally alters the dynamics of regulatory authority, making it essential doctors stay informed and proactive in responding to these developments, and expert compliance support can help. It also means we must all stay engaged with legislative processes and advocate for clear and effective health care regulations.

The study is published in the August 2024 issue of Ophthalmology. Read more.

See the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly snapshot here.

Getty Images photo credits—Las Vegas: LPETTET; meeting: gremlin; back-to-school: izusek; policies: VADIM KUSHNEROV; candidate: Yuri Arcurs peopleimages.com; supplements: Images By Tang Ming Tung; covid: andresr