April 03, 2013
For 15 years, Congress has bestowed special privileges to some small remote hospitals, usually in rural areas, to help them stay afloat. Medicare pays them more than it pays most hospitals and exempts them from financial pressure to operate efficiently and requirements to reveal how their patients fare. Nearly one in four hospitals qualifies for the program. Despite these benefits, there's new evidence that the quality of many of these hospitals may be deteriorating.
April 02, 2013
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Tuesday published an update for the 2014 Clinical Quality Measures for hospitals eligible for the meaningful use program. At the same time, CMS also issued corresponding specifications for electronic reporting and access to related data elements and value sets.
April 01, 2013
A newly proposed bill garnering the support of several medical associations would establish exemptions and amend certain penalties for Medicare providers struggling to attest to meaningful use.
March 29, 2013
Hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries in almost 100 counties across the United States and its territories will be losing coverage for telehealth services because they no longer live in federally designated rural areas. As a result of the 2010 Census, 97 counties in 36 states and territories are being redefined as metropolitan, rather than rural.
March 21, 2013
A telemedicine bill aimed at expanding remote patient monitoring technology in rural and underserved communities was re-introduced in the Senate this week, making it the fifth time the bill has been proposed since 2005.
March 19, 2013
Sharing data has saved 92,000 lives and $9.1 billion over four and a half years, according to Premier healthcare alliance, which today released results of its QUEST collaborative, made up of 333 hospitals that are members of the alliance. Hospitals nationwide could save 950,000 lives and approximately $93 billion over five years by replicating performance boosting practices employed by QUEST.
March 15, 2013
Medicare healthcare providers have managed to lower 30-day readmission rates and all-cause hospitalization within two years using several evidence-based quality improvement strategies, including care coordination, according to a new study.
March 15, 2013
With some healthcare providers now into their second year of meaningful use reporting, Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments were estimated at $12.3 billion paid to a total of 219,000 physicians and hospitals through February since the program's inception.
March 14, 2013
INTEGRIS Health, Oklahoma's largest health system, announced Thursday it will incorporate Phytel's population health and care management tools to help build a medical home model.
March 13, 2013
Banking on repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (R) on March 12 unveiled a plan targeting four major areas of reform. On healthcare, Ryan is specifically aiming to accomplish three things.
March 08, 2013
In the grand finale of the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, Karl Rove and James Carville took the stage for a most theatrical debate on sequestration, party politics, immigration and, of course, healthcare reform.
March 08, 2013
Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health IT, announced the release of an ONC RFI at HIMSS March 6, entitled "Advancing Interoperability and Health Information Exchange," in order to identify ways in which ONC may accelerate interoperability of EMRs without any additional statutory or regulatory authority.
March 07, 2013
A report issued this week by the Government Accountability Office reports that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services overpaid the Medicare Advantage program run by private health insurers by between $3.2 billion and $5.1 billion for the years 2010-2012.
March 07, 2013
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT have published a joint request for information asking industry stakeholders for suggestions on what more, or less, the federal government should be doing to advance clinical information exchange.
March 06, 2013
At the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition on Wednesday, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner and National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD, announced plans to accelerate health information exchange in the the U.S.
March 04, 2013
The Congressional Affairs Panel, held Monday at the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, featured health policy experts and congressional staff members who engaged in a discussion of current national and state legislation affecting healthcare and health IT.
March 03, 2013
All-day workshop gives audience new to health IT a glimpse of technology, meaningful use and federal budget issues.
February 26, 2013
Among the numerous challenges that an ACO model presents, is the need for more sophisticated IT systems that will support distributed care management across a diverse care team that extends from the primary care physician, to the specialists, to the care manager, the patient and others.
February 26, 2013
San Diego-based Humetrix has expanded the ways patients and physicians can exchange health records via its iBlueButton app using not only iPhones and iPads but also Android devices with secure Quick Response code to transfer the patient's Blue Button record between systems.
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February 18, 2013
Already this year, healthcare providers have launched 106 new accountable care organizations (ACOs) that will reach as many as four million beneficiaries, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Jan. 10.
