Below I highlight only a few benefits we offer Registrants, beginning with federal advocacy, to Internet opportunities, to expedited licensure. On other pages we address activities which should also interest you.
National Provider Identifier: Health Service Psychologist Code
Psychologists who bill Medicare must comply with a May 2007 deadline and file for a national provider identifier (NPI). That application requires the identification of profession and practice sub-areas. Concerns have been expressed about the relevance of the various codes, the failure to define practice areas as including diagnosis and assessment, and how the codes might be used by healthcare companies, which also use these codes, to limit practice in the future (unknown at this point). To address some of these concerns, in February 2006 I proposed to the NUCC Code Set Subcommittee Co-Chair, Gail Kocher, that the NUCC code set include a category for health service provider in psychology and asked that a code be added to the taxonomy. After we provided a rationale tied to the online database of ~12,000 credentialed psychologists and our 1974 definition of health service provider in psychology, they voted to agree to take an existent category (health) and re-label it as health service psychologist and tie it to our definition. Since then the new code definition and label has been uploaded to their Web site and is effective. We recognize that there have been many questions concerning this requirement by Medicare. Registrants have asked what they should do. Even if you are not a Medicare provider, this code set is used by private healthcare. Thus, you will need to file an application by May 2007. Our recommendation is that after identifying yourself as psychologist or neuropsychologist, you should choose the codes appropriate to your education, training and credentialing. Be certain to choose health service psychologist. There is no limit on the number of subcodes you can list so choosing to identify yourself as a health service provider in psychology does not mean that you cannot use other codes.
This is an important outcome of advocacy at the federal level that identifies Registrants so we are pleased that we were persuasive. This definition is broader than many other areas and provides a mechanism for verifying your credentials online at the National Register Web site, if the insurer or Medicare chooses to do so.
Good Things Come in Threes
Our communication efforts this year have been outstanding. We launched three Web sites, which is a massive undertaking and a drain on resources. We typically re-design our Web site every 3-4 years. This year we not only re-designed the look and functionality of the National Register Web site by July, we also created a new consumer referral Web site by August and uploaded an automatic scoring CE Web site in October. If you haven’t already done so, check out these three new Web sites (and see pp. 10-13 in this issue for more information):
www.nationalregister.org - for psychologists and students.
www. e- psychologist. org - the CE site for Registrants featuring online scoring and printable CE certificates.
www. findapsychologist. org - the referral site for consumers. continued
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