March/April - West Virginia State Medical Association

President’s Message
Deadlines for Payments or Penalties
by Hoyt J. Burdick, MD
WVSMA President
2012-2013
A deadline may be one of two
things:
1. A time limit, as for payment
of a debt or completion
of an assignment.
2. A boundary line in a prison
that prisoners can cross only
at the risk of being shot. 1
The first definition originated
from early 1920’s American
English newspaper jargon.
The second definition originated in
the 1860’s in a Confederate prisonerof-war
stockade and involves gun
violence, so we’ll focus on the first
definition. Nonetheless, deadlines
are often associated with rewards
or penalties, though less often
of the life-and-death variety.
Everyone knows that the deadline
for filing personal income tax
returns is April 15, 2013. If your
last name begins with any of the
letters M-Z, you know that June 28,
2013 is the deadline for renewal of
your West Virginia medical license.
Many physicians may not know
about approaching governmental
deadlines created by state or
federal mandates including West
Virginia’s new prescription drug
abuse law (SB437), the Affordable
Care Act, Meaningful Use and
e-Prescribing initiatives. Below are
a few deadlines for physicians, most
of which were recently summarized
by Neal Chesanow, Senior Editor,
Medscape Business of Medicine. 2
Continuing Medical
Education Deadlines
SB437 modified a section of
West Virginia Code §30-1-7a that
does away with CME requirements
for “end-of-life including pain
management” for physicians. The
new law does require physicians,
with few exceptions, to take an
approved CME program on drug
diversion training and best practice
prescribing of controlled substances.
The two licensure boards (MD/
DO) have proposed rules being
considered by the legislature
that will set the number of hours
required each licensure cycle and
the effective date of the CME
requirement. (Current proposal
is 3 hours CME beginning for
licensees renewing after May 2014.)
Physicians who attests on a Boarddeveloped
certification form that he/
she has not prescribed, dispensed/
administered a controlled substance
during the subject reporting period:
one (1) year for a new licensee,
the two (2) year renewal period
for other licensees are exempt.
e-Prescription Deadlines
If you didn’t electronically
write at least ten prescriptions in
the first six months of 2011, you
already lost 1% of your Medicare
reimbursement in 2012. You could
lose an additional 1.5% this year
and 2% next year. The deadline for
submitting 2012 e-Prescriptions
was February 28, 2013.
Meaningful Use Deadlines
February 28, 2013, was also the
last day to complete attestation for
Meaningful Use of electronic health
records to qualify for payment based
on the year 2012. This year and
2014 are the last years that eligible
professionals who see Medicare or
Medicaid patients can earn incentive
payments. If you fail to meet the
deadlines, the incentive payments
become financial penalties rising
from 1% in 2015, up to 3% in 2019.
Physician Value-based
Purchasing Deadlines
On January 1, 2013, CMS began
gathering performance data through
the physician quality reporting
4 West Virginia Medical Journal