Health Care It Scope

By Mary Mosquera The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid  Services should reduce the duplicate requirements in its two programs that pay incentives to healthcare providers who use health information technology. It should also reconcile areas in the...

Wide regional variations in physician supply have little effect on patient perceptions of access to care and the quality of medical care patients receive, according to a new study. An article in the February Health Affairs reported the results of a...

Physicians have been encouraged to switch from paper records to electronic systems in their offices, and the push seems to be working. In 2010, 50.7% of office-based doctors used some type of electronic medical records system -- more than twice the...

Doctors can now submit prescriptions for schedule II, III, IV, and V controlled substances electronically under a new Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) rule. DEA’s interim final rule, “Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances,”...

Current policy will unjustly base 2012 penalties on physicians’ e-prescribing use in 2011 The American Medical Association (AMA) and 103 state and specialty medical societies urged the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to revise the...

The American Medical Association (AMA) and 103 state and specialty medical societies are urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to revise the Medicare e-prescribing penalty policy, which would penalize physicians in 2012 if they don't...

By Mary Mosquera The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has named electronic prescribing network provider Surescripts as an organization that can test and approve certain electronic health records modules, bringing to a total of six the...

By Ken Terry Terry Hashey, a family physician in Jacksonville, Fla., remembers how the e-prescribing application in his electronic health record helped him when a new patient presented at his office with an acute problem. She had just flown in from out...

A bill to accelerate states' ability to opt-out of parts of the national health reform law could give states more flexibility to continue working on their own brands of health system reform. Beginning in 2017, the little-discussed opt-out provision in...

Despite a shortened selling season, looming reimbursement cuts and fewer health plan operators in the marketplace, industry observers predict overall enrollment in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans will tick upward a bit next year. And 2011 could be a huge...

San Diego -- With stage 1 regulations for meaningful use released and discussion begun on stage 2, a federal official speaking at the AMA Interim Meeting called for more feedback to ensure these regulations will be workable for physicians. "We need to...

 WASHINGTON – Identity management in healthcare was a hot topic at the Smart Card Alliance 9th Annual Smart Cards in Government Conference held last week in Washington. Controlling access to healthcare records, particularly when it comes to...

Surescripts announced yesterday it would expand its electronic prescribing network to offer health information exchange services for all types of clinical information, including the basic health record sharing envisioned under the federal Nationwide...

Chicago -- Physician leaders at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago are combining federally funded research and Hollywood-style communication to spread their approach to disclosing and reducing medical errors. A three-year, $3 million...

Even when physicians have access to e-prescribing capabilities, many do not routinely use the technology, particularly the more advanced features the federal government is promoting with financial incentives, according to a new study by the Center for...