Contact us: (919) 473-6992
Lightning Bolt Partners
Billing and Building Together
With nearly 50 years of combined experience in medicine and 20 years leading and helping to fund our interprofessional teams, we are your go-to partners to improve clinical and billing efficiency, grow revenue, and manage legal risk.
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Chris Jones, MD, MBA, HMDC, FAAHPM
Partner
Dr. Chris Jones is an Associate Professor of Medicine and is the Clinical Vice Chief of a Palliative Care program in Durham, NC. Chris serves as a faculty member on billing and program development for the Center to Advance Palliative Care, is faculty at the Four Seasons Palliative Care Immersion Course, and serves on the Board of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Palliative Medicine and works frequently as a legal reviewer in the hospice and palliative care space, having assisted clients with over 20 cases.
Chris really enjoys teaching clinicians about billing and coding, translating with humor Medicare's rules for practicing clinicians in Hospital Medicine, Palliative Care, Hospice Care, and other IM specialties and has partnered with over 25 programs and health systems to date.
Phil Rodgers, MD, FAAHPM
Partner
Dr. Phil Rodgers is a Professor and Chair of Family Medicine, Professor of Internal Medicine, and the Co-Director of the Clinical Palliative Care Program at the University of Michigan. A Sojourns Leadership Scholar funded to study Alternative Payment Models in Hospice and Palliative Care and AAHPM's advisor to the RUC, Phil is an expert in building and funding Family Medicine and Palliative Care programs in both the fee-for-service and value-based environments. Dr. Rodgers also serves on the Board of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
He consults nationally for hospice and palliative care programs seeking to compliantly maximize their billing revenues and systems, while promoting team and individual wellness.
• How We Can Help •
We offer a number of solutions to common healthcare problems.
Billing and Coding Teaching and Consulting Across Medicine's Specialties
Program Development and Mentorship,
In-Person or Remotely
Legal Reviews and Expert Testimony in Hospice, PalCare, and Family Medicine
Billing and Coding Teaching Across Medicine's Specialties
Both academic faculty who have won awards for their teaching and service at nationally ranked medical schools , Phil and Chris formed Lightning Bolt Partners to fill a tremendous national need for billing and coding education taught TO clinicians BY clinicians, after CMS's once-in-a-generation billing changes in 2023.
Physicians, advance practice providers, and other qualified health professionals MUST be able to competently and compliantly bill Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers for their work. Well over 60% of physicians do not feel comfortable with billing code selection, often downcoding to avoid scrutiny. Healthcare providers who have been taught about billing often find that teaching to be lacking as non-providers often don't understand clinicians' daily work. This confusion causes HCPs and their employers to lose tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
Filling this gap is Lightning Bolt Partners's specialty. Both Chris and Phil are practicing physician leaders, who have spent the last decade teaching billing and coding to fellow HCPs. Always done with humor and fun (if you can believe it!), you can be sure that an in-person or virtual session for one clinician or a series of small groups teaching hundreds will leave clinicians talking with their peers about how best to use Lightning Bolt, Toilet Paper, and Banana Peel to reinforce how sick their patients are to coders and insurers alike!
Program Development and Mentorship,
In-Person or Remotely
Phil and Chris have helped nearly 50 organizations around the country to get their hospice and palliative care programs from idea to execution. Depending on the time and resources your program has available, support can be in-person or, in our Zoom-reliant world, virtually. In either case, they will meet with your leadership and important stakeholders, rally and teach your team, and even speak at Grand Rounds to educate on PalCare and Hospice.
Chris and Phil will bring their energy and enthusiasm for anticipating issues and solving problems to your organization. They always provide in-the-moment ideas and a written report with a roadmap for the future.
Chris, Phil, and their team of physicians, APPs, nurses, and social workers also enjoy providing remote mentoring for small programs or those that lack experienced in-house PalCare leadership. This support can decrease burnout and turnover by offering those in community-based HAPC programs:
- National connections and opportunities
- Support around medically-complex or emotionally-charged cases
- Regular self-care and debriefing opportunities offered by highly trained professionals
Legal Reviews and Expert Testimony in Hospice, Palliative Care, and Internal/Family Medicine
Phil Rodgers is Board Certified in Family Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Chris Jones is Boarded in Internal Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine and fellowship trained in Geriatric Medicine.
Phil and Chris have assisted dozens of firms and individual attorneys with legal reviews of medical malpractice cases (carefully following the science and having supported both plaintiffs and defendants in the past), hospice RAC audits (long length of stay and level of care from Redetermination through ALJ), and multiple state-level Medicaid audits. Their experience, ability to clearly outline, articulate, and defend their opinion, and humble confidence during testimony all help to move the needle toward a favorable outcome.
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