The Practice Management Committee is tasked with the responsibility of providing strategies, tools and information needed to facilitate the office management and practice of pediatric endocrinology. To this end, we hope to provide periodic “pearls” as pertains to billing and/or office management, recognizing that each institution, state and region likely has subtle differences (we encourage you to validate any offered pearls with your local billing and regulatory staff).
Discussion topics will range anywhere from the coming changes in CMS ambulatory E&M documentation guidelines to how to implement billing for CGM placement and interpretation, among other topics.
We welcome you to review our first “conversation starter” here. And if you have suggestions for future topics you’d like to see us address, please chime in here.
FDA Advisory Statement: regarding the packaging and dispensing of insulin pens
The Practice Management Committee of PES would like to highlight the recently released advisory statement from the FDA regarding the packaging and dispensing of insulin pens. The statement from the FDA highlights the importance of ensuring that “health care professionals should dispense [insulin] pens to a single patient in the original sealed carton.” This is an issue that many of our families might find themselves confronting when picking up insulin at local pharmacies. There have been reports of regional and or national pharmacy protocols encouraging “splitting of insulin pen boxes.” As noted in the FDA statement, “Insulin pens dispensed individually outside of their cartons may have contributed to medication errors including wrong-drug and wrong-dose errors resulting in hyper- or hypoglycemia, missed doses, complaints of possible tampering, and dispensing without the instructions for use.” PES supports efforts to minimize these risks by increasing awareness of this advisory.