Author: trident50
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Taking a closer look at Medicare Advantage money, lobbying
The Center for Public Integrity looks at Medicare Advantage plans — the money surrounding them including for reimbursement and what they spend on lobbying Congress. …read more
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CMS Reports Successful ICD-10 Testing Week
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has reported an 89 percent acceptance rate on test ICD-10 claims submitted to the agency during ICD-10 testing week in March, according to a recent blog post from Niall Brennan, acting director, CMS Offices of Enterprise Management. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has reported…
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Hacker calls health security ‘Wild West’
Kevin Johnson is a professional hacker — albeit a self-described ethical one. As head of the security consulting firm Secure Ideas, his job involves probing into organizations’ networks and applications to identify vulnerabilities. And what he sees in healthcare terrifies him. read more …read more
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Usable EHR Workflow Is Natural, Consistent, Relevant, Supportive and Flexible
This is my third of five guest blog posts covering Health IT and EHR Workflow. Workflow technology has a reputation, fortunately out of date, for trying to get rid of humans all together. Early on it was used for Straight-Through-Processing in which human stockbrokers were bypassed so stock trades happened in seconds instead of days.…
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State highlights: Mass. near 0 percent uninsured; Ga. scraps Medicaid contract bidding; states turn to public health issues
When Massachusetts passed its landmark health coverage law under Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006, no one claimed the state would get to zero, as in 0 percent of residents who are uninsured. But numbers out today suggest Massachusetts is very close. Between December 2013 and March of this year, when the federal government was urging…
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The ONC 10 Year Vision
On June 5th 2014, ONC released “Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: a 10-Year Vision to Achieve an Interoperable Health IT Infrastructure” The plan is divided in 3 year goals, 6 year goals, and 10 year goals. Five specific tactics support the strategies. Below is a summary of the report and a few comments…
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Virginia budget plan moving forward without Medicaid expansion
After the abrupt resignation of a Democrat switched the state Senate to Republican control, Democrats began negotiating on a spending plan that no longer includes the governor’s priority of expanding health care coverage to low-income residents. …read more
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Morning Headlines 6/11/14
IBM Joins Forces with Epic to Bid for Department of Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization Contract IBM announces that it will partner with Epic in the pending DoD EHR vendor search, naming IBM CMIO Keith Salzman, MD, MPH and 22-year Army doc, as project lead. Intermedix Corporation Acquires T-System’s Physician Billing Division T-Systems sells its…
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Variability in EHR use by individual practitioners ‘high’
Physicians, even those within the same practice, use their electronic health record systems differently, which may affect differences in quality and cost outcomes, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. read more …read more
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EHRs Beyond the Hospital and Doctor’s Office: One Assisted Living Facility’s Story
Often an overlooked part of healthcare when it comes to information technology, assisted living communities need health IT tools more than ever thanks to rising acuity levels. One provider of senior housing and care has successfully used software to mitigate this growing challenge. Assisted living communities are caring for residents with more complex healthcare needs…