The looming threat of Hurricane Irma has prompted the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals’ (OMHA’s) Miami Field Office to scale back its operations later this week.
“A state of emergency has been declared for Miami-Dade County, and OMHA has determined that for the safety of the public and our employees, the OMHA Miami Field Office will have limited operations on Thursday and Friday,” an announcement from the Field Office read. “If you are participating in a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge in the OMHA Miami Field Office scheduled for Thursday or Friday, please call the Administrative Law Judge’s legal assistant for the status of your hearing.” If you are unable to contact the legal assistant (for example, if the call is answered by the Field Office’s voicemail message system) and you are not contacted prior to the hearing, you “may assume your Thursday or Friday hearing is not being conducted and will be re-scheduled for a later date,” the announcement added.
Postponed hearings will be rescheduled when the Field Office resumes “normal operations,” the announcement added, but when that could be is anyone’s guess. With sustained winds reaching 185 miles per hour Tuesday, Hurricane Irma became the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin since the National Hurricane Center began keeping records.
The Category 5 storm’s forecasted track would take it close to the northern coastlines of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba over the next several days before it potentially makes landfall somewhere in Florida, although forecasters are warning that there remains significant uncertainty regarding the precise track.
Mandatory visitor evacuation of the Florida Keys began Wednesday.
OMHA’s new eligibility requirements are intended to benefit more providers. The Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA) has expanded its Settlement Conference Facilitation (SCF)
OMHA adds Chapter 14 to its case processing manual The Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (“OMHA”) has recently been updating its OMHA Case Processing
Please log in to your account to comment on this article.
Accurately determining the principal diagnosis is critical for compliant billing, appropriate reimbursement, and valid quality reporting — yet it remains one of the most subjective and error-prone areas in inpatient coding. In this expert-led session, Cheryl Ericson, RN, MS, CCDS, CDIP, demystifies the complexities of principal diagnosis assignment, bridging the gap between coding rules and clinical reality. Learn how to strengthen your organization’s coding accuracy, reduce denials, and ensure your documentation supports true medical necessity.
Denials continue to delay reimbursement, increase administrative burden, and threaten financial stability across healthcare organizations. This essential webcast tackles the root causes—rising payer scrutiny, fragmented workflows, inconsistent documentation, and underused analytics—and offers proven, data-driven strategies to prevent and overturn denials. Attendees will gain practical tools to strengthen documentation and coding accuracy, engage clinicians effectively, and leverage predictive analytics and AI to identify risks before they impact revenue. Through real-world case examples and actionable guidance, this session empowers coding, CDI, and revenue cycle professionals to shift from reactive appeals to proactive denial prevention and revenue protection.
Sepsis remains one of the most frequently denied and contested diagnoses, creating costly revenue loss and compliance risks. In this webcast, Angela Comfort, DBA, MBA, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P, provides practical, real-world strategies to align documentation with coding guidelines, reconcile Sepsis-2 and Sepsis-3 definitions, and apply compliant queries. You’ll learn how to identify and address documentation gaps, strengthen provider engagement, and defend diagnoses against payer scrutiny—equipping you to protect reimbursement, improve SOI/ROM capture, and reduce audit vulnerability in this high-risk area.
Only ICD10monitor delivers what you need: updates on must-know changes associated with the FY26 IPPS, including new ICD-10-CM/PCS codes, CCs/MCCs, and MS-DRGs, plus insights, analysis and answers to your questions from two of the country’s most respected subject matter experts.
Get clear, practical answers to Medicare’s most confusing regulations. Join Dr. Ronald Hirsch as he breaks down real-world compliance challenges and shares guidance your team can apply right away.
Federal auditors are zeroing in on Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility (IRF) and hospital rehab unit services, with OIG and CERT audits leading to millions in penalties—often due to documentation and administrative errors, not quality of care. Join compliance expert Michael Calahan, PA, MBA, to learn the five clinical “pillars” of IRF-PPS admissions, key documentation requirements, and real-life case lessons to help protect your revenue.
During this essential RACmonitor webcast Michael Calahan, PA, MBA Certified Compliance Officer, will clarify the rules, dispel common misconceptions, and equip you with practical strategies to code, document, and bill high-risk split/shared, incident-to & critical care E/M services with confidence. Don’t let audit risks or revenue losses catch your organization off guard — learn exactly what federal auditors are looking for and how to ensure your documentation and reporting stand up to scrutiny.
Learn how to navigate the proposed elimination of the Inpatient-Only list. Gain strategies to assess admission status, avoid denials, protect compliance, and address impacts across Medicare and non-Medicare payors. Essential insights for hospitals.
Happy National Doctor’s Day! Learn how to get a complimentary webcast on ‘Decoding Social Admissions’ as a token of our heartfelt appreciation! Click here to learn more →
CYBER WEEK IS HERE! Don’t miss your chance to get 20% off now until Dec. 2 with code CYBER24
