The transition to ICD-10 may seem like a distant worry, but the reality is that it will require quite a bit of strategic planning that practices should already have begun. ICD10Watch.com has created a timeline to help guide providers through the transition. Here is a simplified breakdown of the timeline: Assess Training and Education Needs - [ Read More ]
Patients today are accustomed to using personal computers, cellphones and tablets to check email, pay bills, access social media, read the news and weather, play games, and more. Given our increasingly online world, patients will expect to communicate with their doctors and have access to their health records online with increasing frequency. Providers who adopt [ Read More ]
This past weekend, our team was exhibiting at the AAAAI Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX. Representatives were on-hand to share with attendees the benefits of the AllergyEHR product, as well as the recently launched IMSGo platform. Meditab’s IMSGo is a mobile application that allows providers to see patient information such as demographics, [ Read More ]
Dallas-based attorney Martin Merritt solicited the advice of Pat Whaley, a coding expert with Manage My Practice, LLC, about how physician practices can minimize the chances of an unfavorable audit. Merritt’s blog post on physicianpractice.com was at least in part a response to the CMS document published recently to debunk myths associated with fee-for-service recovery [ Read More ]
As the fervor toward EMR continues to grow and new systems are being developed to partake in this increasingly competitive market, the same key words are being tacked on to every sales pitch: “streamline your practice”, “easy-to-use”, “improve patient care”, and the list goes on and on. If you’re a decision maker in your practice, [ Read More ]
If your practice is making the transition to EMR, here are five things to consider before you sign that proposal: 1. Can the system adapt to your data? Some interfaces may look pretty during a demonstration, but how will it handle the high volume traffic of your practice? The best systems offer “drill down” features [ Read More ]
A new survey published in the JAMA Internal Medicine found that patients suffer when hospital physicians are overloaded, and up to 98,000 patients die every year in the hospital as a result of preventable medical errors. In November 2010 the researchers from Johns Hopkins surveyed 890 self-identified hospitals that use QuantiaMD.com, an online physician network. The [ Read More ]
The expansion of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 is comprised of four rules that create the omnibus final rule. The rules, as per the Department of Health and Human Services, are summarized below: Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Enforcement Rules mandated by the Health Information Technology for Economic [ Read More ]
Houston-based attorney Rachel V. Rose highlighted several issues physicians should know about in the coming year, as reported on physicianspractice.com. The issues concern HIPPA and the HITECH Act, quality of care and readmission rates, recovery audits, the fiscal cliff bill and the oral arguments between the Secretary of Health and Human Services and Auburn Regional [ Read More ]
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University say hospitals can reduce readmission of psychiatric patients by keeping psychiatric records within patients’ electronic health records (EHRs), according to a study published online in the International Journal of Medical Informatics. The researchers surveyed the methods of psychiatric record storage and accessibility for 18 top hospitals across the nation. [ Read More ]