I often consider the best ways to market my strengths in financial review from my experience as a state Medicare and Medicaid expense auditor to advance my legal nurse consulting business (LNC). I recently decided to take a Medicare Set Aside course (MSA) to expand my experience and credentials.
So what is an MSA? In a nutshell, MSA is an allocation of funds for a person who is concurrently on Medicare and worker’s compensation at the same time. In this instance, Medicare would be the payer of last resort during the settlement process, as enacted by the Medicare Secondary Payer Act of 2000 and other extensions to that act in 2007. As a nurse reviewing MSA cases, you focus primarily on reviewing and identifying unnecessary Medicare payments for your attorney client.
If you decide to pursue MSA, be aware that this specialty is regulated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and you must meet certain requirements, which you can view on the organization’s website, to be eligible.
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Another specialty within legal nurse consulting that overlaps with MSA is life care planning (LCP), an area of law that deals with helping people handle the challenges of caring for an elderly family member with disability or chronic illness and includes care coordination, family education, health care and financial decision making, care advocacy and crisis intervention among other duties.
Recently I spoke with Varsha Desai, BSN, RN, CLNC, CNLCP of Alliance Medical Legal Consulting and asked her why she got started in LCP.
“The foundation of LCP is the nursing process. As nurses we have been developing care plans whether for a day, month or year since the beginning of our careers. So taking my skills and transferring them to the legal area was one of the reasons I chose to do it,” Desai shared.
She added that aspects of LCP other than litigation, such as handling estate planning and special needs, are very rewarding. “This career allows me to continue practicing nursing but not in the traditional way people think.”
Do not be afraid to use your strengths and step outside the box in your LNC business by looking into specialty areas like these to enhance your business with attorneys, insurance companies and other clients.
