Spotlight: Sharon Sherman - Philly.com Best Acupuncturist (2016)

In this Spotlight, I want to congratulate Sharon Sherman of Empirical Point Acupuncture for winning this year's Philly.com Reader's Choice Award for the "Health & Fitness" category! Beating out physicians, surgeons, chiropractors, spas and gyms in the greater Philadelphia area. A great honor!

Sharon is the founder and licensed acupuncturist at Empirical Point Acupuncture in Philadelphia, since 2001. She is also a Board-appointed member of the Consulting Staff at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, part of the Jefferson Health System.

Sharon earned her Master of Science in Oriental Medicine with honors from Tri-State College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

I'm extremely proud to say Sharon is a long time Jasmine user and many of the features and inspiration for Jasmine is directly attributable to her!

Empirical Point Acupuncture 

Please join me in congratulating Sharon on this VERY prestigious award!


Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you.

Minto Tsai
Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!

What's an NPI?

What's an NPI?

The National Provider Identifier (NPI) is a unique 10-digit identification, intelligence-free number issued to health care providers in the US by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This means that the numbers do not contain any data about the health care provider, like medical specialty.

The NPI is used for all administrative and financial transactions between covered health care providers, health plans and health care clearinghouses. So, as an acupuncturist, if you want to accept insurance and file a claim, you will need an NPI.

The NPI was mandated as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

How to get an NPI?

Getting an NPI requires applying through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website linked below.
 

https://nppes.cms.hhs.gov/NPPES

Here's also a video to help you navigate the website:



Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you.
Minto Tsai Founder
P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!

Is your acupuncture patient covered?

How do you check if your patient's insurance covers acupuncture?

If you're like many, you have to call to verify your patient's information, check the individual payer's web sites, or the more common scenario, ignoring the process altogether.

What a pain!

As part of exploring the new insurance billing features coming in Jasmine, we'll take a look at the benefits of the new Patient Coverage feature and how it'll help you save time and money in your practice!

Real-time Coverage Information

Checking a patient's coverage, should be real-time and instantaneous. As easy as clicking a button, a practitioner should be able to pull up a patient's insurance coverage and at-a-glance see the plan details. The practitioner should be able to immediately see if the patient's plan covers acupuncture and determine the patient's cost estimates in real-time.

No more time consuming phone calls to insurance companies!

Verify Demographic Information

While checking a patient's coverage, you'll be able to check the patient's demographic information and update them within Jasmine. Keep everything current with what's on-file at the insurance company.

Reduce Denials

With all the details of your patient's plan in front of you, you can quickly see the deductible for In and Out-of-Network and whether the plan covers acupuncture!

With all the coverage information at your finger tips, you'll be able to reduce the number of claim denials!

Insurance billing is currently in active development. If you're an acupuncturist interested in insurance billing and would like to be the FIRST to be notified and to use the new insurance billing features, sign up below!

Signup Insurance Billing Private Invite!

If you're interested in how insurance enrollments will work, visit our blog post here ---> Can acupuncturists easily enroll with insurance?

Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you.

Minto Tsai
Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!

Can acupuncturists easily enroll with insurance?

Before an acupuncturist can start submitting claims and receiving reimbursements from insurance companies, she needs to go through the first step of enrolling with the insurance payer. Provider enrollment is an important first step for the insurance company to ensure they're working with only qualified acupuncturists.

The process is not for the faint of heart.

The enrollment process has been difficult and time consuming because it required heavy paperwork and manual labor on the part of the insurance company. In turn, translating to long processing times and frustration for the acupuncturist.

Any time I hear the words "paperwork" and "manual labor", I get excited and my ears perk up. These are music to my ears, because, they are areas that can be streamlined with technology.

As a quick introduction, here's a sneak peak at the Enrollment process for Jasmine in the upcoming insurance billing features.

Choose a payer

As a practitioner, you will be able to choose the payer that you want to work with. Jasmine currently connects with over 2,000 payers across the country and will continuously add more.

Enter provider info

You will then provide the necessary information required by the insurance company. Information necessary to process a claim, like your NPI (National Provider Identifier) and EIN (Employer Identification Number).

Signature

And, finally, if the insurance company accepts electronic signatures, you can sign within Jasmine!


Insurance billing is currently in active development. If you're an acupuncturist interested in insurance billing and would like to be the first to be notified and to use the new insurance billing features, sign up below!

Signup Insurance Billing Private Invite!

Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you.

Minto Tsai
Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!

What Acupuncturists Need to Know about Passwords & HIPAA!

Does your acupuncture practice have a password policy? Does it look like the picture above?

Don't you hate when you've come up with a clever, awesome password, commit it to memory, and then get the dreaded "Reset Your Password" email? It almost seems to come too quickly. Didn't I just reset my password?

As a Covered Entity, which handles PHI (Patient Health Information), having a password policy is important. Especially, for the computers and systems, you use for storing PHI.

But, what does having a password policy really mean and what should be in the password policy?

What does HIPAA say?

In the HIPAA Security Rule, under Administrative Safeguards, Password Management is specifically called out.

Let's see what it says.

HIPAA doesn't give specifics for what your password management policy should be. All it says is that you have in place, "Procedures for creating, changing, and safeguarding passwords."

Now What?

While HIPAA doesn't mandate a specific policy, it's good policy that your practice has a set of sensible rules. As and example, a procedure might look something like this.

Creating Passwords

• DON'T Reuse old passwords.
• DON'T Use simple passwords.

Changing Passwords

• Periodically reset passwords.

Safeguarding Passwords

• DON'T Write passwords down.

The idea is to come up with a set of rule, write them down, and follow them.

How Jasmine Helps

Jasmine helps you manage your password policy within the system. Providing a self documenting policy within the software itself!

Whether you're already using Jasmine, or planning to in the future, a good password management policy is important for keeping your patient's PHI safe and secure!


Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you.

Minto Tsai
Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!