Johnson Smithwood's Page

"Before making a field judgement on what CMS may or may not consider an emergency based on what it is that you write in in your documentation, don't forget that you may not be dealing with CMS at all with Medicare billing. There are many, many…"

"Skip,  I'm surprised that you would not throw the caveat out there of "under the current model of care" in there, without exploring the opportunity for for EMS to better partner with heath care systems and payors to better access…"

"David,  As a long time medic and current IT developer, I think the question lies in how much time/resources you are willing to invest in a LMS. The advantage to something like Centrelearn is canned content, a turn key system and most things you…"

"Geri, my point wasn't to try to move things back to the old days where everybody gets oxygen, whether they need it or not because it's a line billable item. There are agencies that will require IV's on every patient because it's…"

"EMT's and paramedics don't make revenue for their agencies. Ambulances do. Organization's do not get paid for the professional services they provide. They get paid to load someone up into a vehicle and move them to the hospital.…"

"There's a number of cases where 12 lead monitors aren't really needed. Do first responders in a good system where a 12 lead equipped transport unit is coming within 10 minutes really need it? There are arguments both ways.  If they…"

"Who gets to be the tactical medical support for the tactical medical  support? Oh, yeah. The guys that were sitting on the closest streetcorner to the staging area..... "

"Dig around online, you can find used LP12's for around 5k. If 5k's going to break the bank, you might want to rethink going ALS until your finances are in a little bit better shape. If you don't need all the bells and whistles, used…"

"" What you describe happens only if the employees ALLOW it to happen - or they can vote with their feet." Skip, I agree....IF.... We can't circle and circle around issues previously discussed. Employers will continue to scrape…"

"Yes, current EMS employees are very often interchangeable cogs in the machine that comprises many EMS systems. We've known this for years. There is little demonstrated economic value or benefit to highly skilled and long tenured…"

"Skip, once again, you show that your agency is more enlightened than most I've been affiliated with. Your agency probably declines to engage in the time honored "performance" EMS practices of juking the stats with…"

"While I haven't read all of the posts presented, most of these posts revolve around the UHU as a measure of "productivity". The measured UHU reflects the revenue generating (or possibly revenue generating) activity. It in no way…"

"http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/community/ems_employment.shtml"

"What definition of 'emergency' are you using to define emergency transfer? And are the facilities and physicians you are using the same criteria?   In my fifteen years of EMS, I found that there was very often a complete lack of…"

"Why do expanded prehospital services need be provided by paramedics? There is already a licensed practitioner capable of performing these services. They are called PA's. I'd be interested to see if a hospital or other entity…"

"One self proclaimed "high performance" system I worked in had a QA manager that insisted that asystole was a rhythm that had to be worked, despite the protocols that allowed us not to work a patient who was "obviously…"