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'Meaningful use' readiness drops among hospital CIOs

Hospital CIOs are rapidly losing confidence in their organization’s ability to qualify early for federal subsidies for “meaningful use” of EMRs, according to an updated survey from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives. In a November survey, results of which were released last week, just 15 percent of the 191 CHIME members queried said they expected to qualify for the Medicare and Medicaid bonus payments in the first half [...]

 

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Greening your technology: A high-tech way to save the planet

Illustration by Jon Krause after Henri Rousseau Since he was a teenager, Daniel Wolk, MD, a family physician in the suburbs of Philadelphia, has had a passion for protecting the environment. Now that he is physician, he sees energy conservation as a key component to patient care. “My driving philosophy is that my patients will be most healthy when they have a healthy environment to live in. So I feel [...]

 

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Commentary: Why RECs and HIEs need each other

Regional Extension Centers (RECs) and health information exchange (HIE) initiatives share a common purpose: enabling the exchange of patient information to improve health outcomes and care quality. Their individual goals and objectives are also complementary. RECs support physicians in the selection, implementation and use of electronic health records (EHRs), while HIEs provide the infrastructure across which the information collected by those EHRs can be exchanged. Yet in our work with [...]

 

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Health America, Preferred Primary Care Physicians partner on patient-centered care

HealthAmerica and Preferred Primary Care Physicians have launched a new pilot program aimed at providing more coordinated and patient-centered primary care and improved communications among patients, physicians and care teams. Preferred consists of 32 board-certified physicians and five physician extenders specializing in internal medicine and family practice. It has 14 practice locations in the South Hills and three locations in Uniontown in Fayette County. In addition, Preferred offers state-of-the-art outpatient [...]

 

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Government task force aims to expand health IT to rural areas

The Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture have signed a memorandum of understanding linking rural hospitals and clinicians to capital loan programs to help them purchase software and hardware needed to implement health IT. On Aug. 16, the White House publicly announced the Administration’s commitment to this agreement. [See Obama's new rural jobs initiative includes health IT.] HHS’  Rural Health Information Technology Task Force, has been working with the [...]

 

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CMS explains how to get paid EHR incentives

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will pay physicians four to eight weeks after they verify that they have satisfied conditions for meaningful use of electronic health records. That means that the soonest that CMS will issue incentives is in May. Providers will not receive the incentive payments within that time frame, however, if they have not yet met the threshold of $24,000 for allowed charges in claims for [...]

 

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As health-care law turns 1, supporters using occasion to shape its image

This week, a loose federation of left-leaning groups is convening nearly 200 gatherings to peddle the virtues of health-care reform. A women’s speak-out in Philadelphia. A small-business round-table discussion in Albuquerque. A fish fry for seniors in Columbia, S.C. From the Obama administration alone, 42 officials are fanning out to events in 22 states. The choreography coast to coast is a birthday party, of sorts, to mark the year that [...]

 

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Bad News for Malpractice Insurers May Be Good News for Doctors

Neil Chesanow Malpractice insurers are looking glum. Right now, competition is driving down medical malpractice insurance rates. Their business is cyclical. While it has been doing well for the past few years, with 2011 also expected to be profitable, industry forecasters gazing into their crystal balls don’t like what they see. Here’s why: Profitability of premiums is falling. Increased competition among insurers for doctors’ business is taking a bite out [...]

 

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Making Mobile Health Work for Your Medical Practice

Physicians have always been a mobile crowd — zipping between exam rooms, clinics, and hospitals. Now, with the help of smartphones and wireless access, healthcare is becoming mobile too. Through smartphone apps and handheld devices, the mobile health (or “mhealth”) revolution is changing how patients manage their care, how physicians run their practices, and how the community connects to share information. “Healthcare is fundamentally a mobile process,” says Andy Barbash, [...]

 

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Medical Groups Call for HHS To Revise Policy on E-Prescribing Penalties

Last week, the American Medical Association and 103 other medical societies sent a letter urging HHS to revise a Medicare policy that would penalize physicians for not electronically prescribing medications, Healthcare IT News reports. Under the policy, physicians who do not e-prescribe in the first six months of 2011 would face penalties starting in 2012. AMA said the penalties could negatively affect efforts to promote widespread health IT adoption. The [...]

 

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Medicare Advantage 2011: Slight Enrollment Gains, More Cost-Sharing, Major Acquisitions

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 year for mergers and acquisitions, one industry consultant says. The open-enrollment season for MA plans kicked off on Nov. 15 and will run until Dec. 31. CMS anticipates MA enrollment will [...]

 

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Meaningful What?

Recently, I decided to do a little investigation. We all keep hearing about and thus talking about the new levels of mandated compliance. Not only hospitals have to adhere to the changes, but clinics and physicians offices as well. Of course, my impetus for this was self serving. Once again, I wanted to look at an aspect of our industry and profession that was going through changes. I wanted to [...]

 

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Coordinated Care System Helps Physicians Meet More Patient Needs

If you get sick at night or the weekend, all too often the local emergency room is the only medical facility with an open door. You may know that your regular doctor could treat your asthma or that nagging cough, but you wind up in the emergency room because your symptoms inconveniently occurred outside regular business hours. A study this month in Health Affairs found that Americans bypass their primary-care doctor [...]

 

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New tax rule targets salaries of health insurance executives

As part of health system reform, insurance companies are facing limits on how much they can deduct executive pay from their taxes — limits similar to what the government put on troubled banks that took TARP money. Until the March enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, health plans, like other companies, could deduct up to $1 million in salaries paid to top executives, with the Internal Revenue [...]

 

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AAFP's Center for Health IT Weighs Burden of Meaningful Use

Concerns Include Timelines, Tech Support, Skepticism