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Leslie WitkinAbout Us

     Physicians First, Inc. was founded in Orlando, Florida in June of 1990 by the company president, Leslie Witkin.

     Leslie is a graduate of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock School of Nursing in New Hampshire and has over twenty years of successful experience in medical practice management.

     Her long term healthcare career has fostered mutual respect in clinical and professional relationships with physicians, medical office personnel, state and federal legislators, and executives in other organizations that represent physician interests.

     The goal of the company is to provide quality consulting services to help physicians achieve a successful business in a complex regulatory environment that allows physicians to be a physician first….the way it should be.

     Being highly pro-active and with steadfast commitment, the company has been successful in presenting testimony to both state and federal regulators resulting in resolution to physician issues and legislation related to prompt pay laws.

     The company works directly with physician businesses to provide operational assessments, auditing, and other consulting services. In addition, Physicians First, Inc. has conducted and written comprehensive manuals for a variety of seminars both nationally and throughout the State of Florida. Topics for programs are always pertinent to the latest regulatory and operational issues facing the medical business.

     The value of educational programs as well as the company's consulting services is more than documented in the references from both participants, administrators, and other executives who have utilized Physicians First, Inc. in their organizations.

     Physicians First Inc. has published many articles, frequently renders opinions, and has served as a speaker for many national publications that cover a wide variety of physician specialties, coding, policy, and regulatory issues.
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..the way it should be

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July 18, 2010

Article: 2012 Penalties for not E-Prescribing in Medicare Would be Based On Analyzing Provider Data for the Period 1/1/2011 through 6/30/2011
   If you have not implemented E-Prescribing in your practice, you should not put it off any longer.
   As of 1/1/2012 Medicare allowed amounts for individual providers will decrease by 1% if providers are not "successfully" e-prescribing for Medicare patients. Where this may seem like a long way off, CMS recently proposed the determination of whether the penalty will be imposed would be based on analyzing provider data for the period 1/1/2011 through 6/30/2011.
   For claims based submission of the E-Prescribe measure, CMS would look at services billed by the provider. If there were 100 services billed where the E-Prescribe measure applied, 10 of those claims must have the code for E-Prescribing reported or the penalty would be imposed. For registry based or EHR reporting of E-Prescribe, these qualified registries or EHR vendors would need to download data to CMS during the period 7/1/2011 through 8/19/2011. The same 100 encounter rule with the minimum 10 reporting would be applied in these situations to avoid the penalty in 2012.
   Exemptions to the penalty would apply if:
    The provider is of a type who does not have prescribing privileges, or
    Data analysis indicates there were less than 100 applicable cases where E-Prescribe should have been reported, or
    Less than 10% of the providers Medicare allowed amounts are applicable for E-Prescribing reporting.
   Keep in mind also that penalties for not successfully e-prescribing increase as of 2013 to 1.5% and 2% as of 2014 and beyond.
   To review the E-Prescribing reporting measure specification click here
   To review all information related to the CMS E-Prescribe program click here