HBMA Congratulates Comprehensive Billing Consultants On Compliance Accreditation

WASHINGTON - June 25, 2020 - PRLog -- Today the Healthcare Business Management Association (HBMA) announced that Comprehensive Billing Consultants is now accredited under the HBMA Compliance Accreditation Program for revenue cycle management (RCM) companies (a.k.a., medical billing and medical practice management companies) and offered its congratulations. The HBMA Compliance Accreditation Program is designed to assess compliance with a range of federal healthcare industry regulations, including provisions to protect patient privacy under HIPAA, promote cybersecurity, and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse in medical billing.

Comprehensive Billing Consultants specializes in billing, credentialing, consulting, and auditing support for Autism Service Providers both in the United States and beyond. "CBC takes compliance very seriously.  We are honored to be awarded this accreditation. We work very hard to ensure our clients know they can trust our services are in compliance with Local, State and Federal programs," said Sarah Schmitz, CPB, CPC, CMRS-I, President of Comprehensive Billing Consultants.

"HBMA understands that medical billing and revenue cycle management companies operate in a complex, highly regulated profession, fraught with high consequences for failure.  By achieving HBMA Compliance Accreditation, Comprehensive Billing Consultants has demonstrated by independent evaluation that their practices surpass federal requirements to protect confidential patient medical information, secure their data systems, and prevent fraud," said Cindy Pittmon, RCC, CHBME, FRBMA, president of HBMA.

The HBMA Compliance Accreditation Program is the result of the RCM industry coming together within HBMA to establish a process to independently assess the participating company's program to fulfill its obligation to meet regulatory requirements. The HBMA Compliance Accreditation Program assesses compliance with HIPAA and with Health and Human Service Office of Inspector General compliance standards on fraud, waste and abuse; the Stark Law, which is designed to prevent conflicts of interest by medical providers in their prescribed patient care; federal Anti-kickback law; and the OIG work plan. The assessment under the HBMA Compliance Accreditation Program includes a comprehensive evaluation of the policies and practices of RCM companies with respect to employee training; security risks, including the security of confidential patient health information; documentation storage and handling; practices to promote compliance with federal regulations; disaster and emergency preparedness plans; and human resources practices, including background check procedures and onboarding.

The program was announced in April 2018 and was officially launched in October 2018 after beta testing by four HBMA member companies. Since that time, 22 companies have achieved HBMA compliance accreditation.