Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas is adding anesthesia providers to the 2013 Professional Providers Quality-Based Reimbursement Program. Under this program if you meet certain requirements, you can qualify for an additional 1.5% increase to the 2013 MAPs for all services except clinical lab, pharmacies and pharmaceuticals, and dental services. As part of the requirements to qualify for this additional reimbursement, each provider must be fully compliant with transacting business with BCBSKS in an electronic fashion. This includes submitting all eligible claims electronically (already being done), accepting electronic remittance advice documents, receiving all communications (including newsletters) electronically, and set up and using the Availity.
We recently submitted paperwork to get each provider set up to received BCBSKS payments through electronic fund transfers (EFTs). This will be set up and effective as soon as BCBS gets the information loaded. We anticipate this should take place prior to the end of December. We also need to set each provider up to receive electronic newsletters. This is set up by Tax ID number. Each provider will be set up to receive these newsletters within the next week or so, using personal emails. These newsletters and updates are sent around 5 times a month. Feel free to review these updates as they come out; however, please do not unsubscribe to these as this is a requirement to receive the additional 1.5% payments.
The Availity portal also has to be set up for each provider. This portal is used to check patient eligibility and benefits along with being able to obtain claim status information. An Access Delegation Form with the ‘Availity’ logo in the upper right corner was sent to each provider group needing a signature and returned to us in order to get you set up. If you have not yet signed and returned this form to the ABI office, please do so at your earliest convenience as this will hinder your additional 1.5% payment.
The current bcbsks.com website will no longer be available to check eligibility and benefits starting 1/1/13. If you need direct access to this new Availity portal to obtain this information, please contact Bonnie Wendling at (316) 281-3740.
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Editor: Philip Blann (pblann@anesthesiabilling.com).
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