Nearly $10.7 billion in meaningful use incentive payments has been distributed to more than 190,000 hospitals and eligible professionals through the end of December 2012, according to the latest report from CMS, Modern Healthcare reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health record systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
Details of Report
According to the most recent data, both the total incentive payments distributed and the number of paid providers increased substantially from CMS’ November 2012 totals. Total payments increased by 15% from $9.3 billion in November 2012, while the number of paid providers — including those in Medicare Advantage Plans — rose by 7.7% from 176,561 in November 2012.
The report also found that:
Source: iHealthBeat
Hospital and health system administrators’ confidence about their organization’s readiness to meet Stage 2 meaningful use requirements varies, according to a KPMG Healthcare & Life Sciences Institute poll, Healthcare IT News reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health record systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
The poll — which was conducted during a November webcast — included 140 respondents.
Findings on Stage 2 Readiness
According to the poll:
Findings on Barriers to Meeting Stage 2 Requirements
When asked about the biggest challenges to meeting Stage 2 requirements:
According to the poll, 14% of respondents cited other reasons as the biggest challenge to meeting Stage 2 requirements.
Findings on Ability To Comply With HIPAA Privacy and Security Standards
When asked about their organizations’ ability to comply with HIPAA privacy and security regulations:
Source: iHealthBeat
Advanced use of an electronic health record system and an implementation strategy for health information exchange are essential to building a successful accountable care organization, according to a report released last week by the Commonwealth Fund, EHR Intelligence reports (Murphy, EHR Intelligence, 12/17).
Methodology
For the report, researchers analyzed 59 health systems of different sizes, characteristics and locations.
To address a lack of data on readiness to implement ACOs, researchers developed a “capabilities framework” tool that included components such as population health data management (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 12/17).
Report Findings
According to the report, “[d]evelopment of underlying information technology was found to be [an] element necessary for accountable care.”
It added, “This technology goes beyond electronic health records and health information exchanges and enables the integration of disparate data, analysis of data across a patient population, stratification of financial and clinical risk in the population, and measurement of the impact of targeted interventions.”
The report found than an IT infrastructure “that can support data mining is key, as monitoring a patient population’s health care quality, spending and utilization is fundamental to operating an ACO effectively.”
According to the report, financial resources to invest in such an IT infrastructure are essential (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 12/18).
The report added that since few organizations across the U.S. have achieved advanced use of EHRs and health data exchange, it is too soon to predict where the technology will reduce costs and improve care (EHR Intelligence, 12/17).
Source: iHealthBeat
Do EMR’s help in Better Medical Care ?
You are happy with your emr. It is easy to locate notes, enter and edit patient information and not wait for the trolley to come trundling along. But has it made your patients lives better ?
No matter how you slice it, you cannot get one single, convincing answer. As an increasing number of practices are joining the emr fray, this question and the answer to it, is more important than ever.
Comprehensive Progress notes, An Ancient Relic ?
Yes, documenting patient records has never been so easy. Or, so impersonal either. Straight out of a can templates have taken the place of long and informative patient progress notes. A physician going through the progress note in his emr is more likely to encounter highly edited and simplified information, which may not give him a clear picture of his patient’s progress.
Sigh, The Doctor is too busy…
A common complaint heard in the waiting room of doc’s offices is that patients are slowly becoming the least powerful factor in the equation. With cuts in reimbursement and constant changes in the healthcare landscape, it is a tough world to live in for physicians. And learning the ropes of a new system isn’t a walk in the park either. And in this entire din it is the voice of the patient that sadly goes unheard.
EMR’s do lead to Higher Quality of Care.
A recent study published in the The Journal of General Internal Medicine states that ehr use had led to significantly higher quality of care. It is one of the first extensive researches conducted on the usefulness of an emr in a clinical setting. And going by its results, despite its flaws electronic medical records billing services are here to stay. Physicians, who learn the ropes quickly enough and can work around the limitations of the system, can realize the endless possibilities it offers. Better patient care and easy access to records at all times, are just a few of them.
Source: Medical Billing Star
Electronic health record vendor Allscripts has filed a lawsuit alleging that the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation improperly awarded a contract worth about $303 million to a rival EHR vendor — Epic Systems — which also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, Modern Healthcare reports (Barr, Modern Healthcare, 12/14).
Allscripts filed the lawsuit last week in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan (Dolmetsch, Bloomberg, 12/13).
About the Contract Bids
In September, Allscripts lost a bid to replace HHC’s fragmented EHR system with a new, integrated EHR system that would link 11 public hospitals, 70 clinics, thousands of physicians and more than one million patients. Allscripts’ proposal would have cost $299 million, according to HHC documents.
Instead, HHC awarded a $303 million contract to Epic. The HHC documents characterized the price difference as minimal (iHealthBeat, 10/11).
In October, Allscripts filed a protest of the contract award. The filing claimed that although the final bids differed by only $4 million, the total ownership cost for Allscripts’ EHR system would be hundreds of millions of dollars less (Goedert, Health Data Management, 12/14).
Details of the Lawsuit
In its lawsuit, Allscripts alleged that HHC’s selection of Epic was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and lacks a rational basis.”
According to Allscripts, its proposal would have saved HHC $535 million compared with Epic’s proposal (Modern Healthcare, 12/14).
“HHC failed to follow evaluation criteria which required that award be based, in part, on the comparative total cost of ownership of offerors,” the suit alleged.
Response From HHC
HHC in a statement said, “Allscripts’ claim that it underbid Epic by more than half a billion dollars is absurd and strikes us as an ill-fated attempt to reassure investors and inflate its sagging stock price” (Bloomberg, 12/13).
The statement added, “Unfortunately, as our multi-year review has revealed, Allscripts lacks a truly integrated [EHR] solution and has repeatedly lost business to Epic and other vendors as a result. HHC will defend its well-supported decision and prevail in this lawsuit.”
Epic declined to comment on the case, according to Health Data Management (Health Data Management, 12/14).
Source: iHealthBeat
Although 80% of consumers say that U.S. residents would benefit from having more control of their health care, only 19% said they have a personal health record, according to a survey by Wolters Kluwer Health, FierceHealthIT reports (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 12/13).
Survey Details
The survey — conducted in November — involved a nationally representative sample of 1,000 U.S. consumers age 18 and older (Wolters Kluwer Health survey, Nov. 2012).
Survey Findings
According to the survey, 19% of consumers said that — discounting doctors’ reputations — they would select a physician in a technologically advanced office that allows for online appointment scheduling and emailing with clinicians. The survey also found that:
Source: iHealthBeat
Eligible hospitals and health care professionals received a total of about $2.7 billion in Medicaid meaningful use incentive payments last year, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, Politico‘s “Pulse” reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health record systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
The report found that last year, about 39% of the hospitals and about 33% of the health care professionals who were eligible for the Medicaid portion of the meaningful use program in 2011 received incentive payments (Millman, “Pulse,” Politico, 12/14).
Findings About Hospitals
GAO found that 5,013 hospitals were eligible for the Medicaid portion of the meaningful use program in 2011. Of those hospitals, 1,964 facilities received a combined $1.7 billion in Medicaid EHR incentive payments last year.
The Medicaid incentive payments to hospitals ranged from $7,528 to $7.2 million, with a median payment of $613,512, according to the report.
Of the hospitals that received Medicaid incentive payments, the report found that:
Findings About Eligible Professionals
The report found 139,600 health care professionals were eligible for the Medicaid meaningful use incentive payments in 2011. Of those professionals, 45,962 received a combined $967 million in Medicaid EHR incentive payments last year.
Of the professionals who received Medicaid incentive payments, the report found that:
Source: iHealthBeat
More office-based physicians are using electronic health record systems that have the higher-level functionality necessary to meet the meaningful use program’s requirements, according to an analysis from the Office for the National Coordinator for Health IT, Modern Healthcare reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
For the analysis, three researchers from ONC’s Office of Economic Analysis, Evaluation and Modeling examined data from the annual national EHR survey conducted by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
According to ONC’s analysis, 73% of surveyed physicians said that their EHR system was capable of meeting the meaningful use program’s electronic prescribing requirement. ONC researchers said the finding suggests an expansion in EHR capabilities since 2009, when only one-third of surveyed physicians said that their EHR system allowed for electronic prescribing.
The ONC analysis also noted that in 2012:
The ONC researchers concluded that since the passage of the stimulus package, more physicians have adopted EHR technology capable of meeting meaningful use program requirements. They added that their analysis shows “important national progress toward the goals of improving health and health care through the use of advanced health information technology” (ONC analysis, December 2012).
Source: iHealthBeat
Motivational text and video messages sent via mobile phone could help smokers quit the habit, according to a new review published in the Cochrane Library, Medical News Today reports (Medical News Today, 11/15).
Study Details
For the study, researchers examined several studies that tracked a total of 9,100 smokers over six months.
About half of the smokers received text or video messages on their mobile phones daily for several weeks leading up to a predetermined quit date. After the quit date, the group continued to receive multiple messages daily, including:
The other half of the smokers did not receive any mobile phone-based support services.
Study Findings
Nine percent of smokers who received the mobile phone messages went without cigarettes for at least six months, compared with 5% of smokers who did not receive the messages, the study found.
Robyn Whittaker, lead study author, said that there is not enough evidence to determine whether mobile phone-based smoking cessation programs are cost-effective but added that a counselor likely would cost more (Grens, Reuters, 11/14).
HHS Unveils Smoking Cessation Website
In related news, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday announced the launch of a tobacco cessation website called BeTobaccoFree.gov.
The site offers information on:
Source: iHealthBeat
About 19% of U.S. adult smartphone users have applications to help them monitor or manage their health, according to a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, MobiHealthNews reports (Dolan, MobiHealthNews, 11/8).
Report Details
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the California HealthCare Foundation helped fund the study. CHCF publishes iHealthBeat (Central Valley Business Times, 11/8).
For Pew’s Mobile Health 2012 report, researchers surveyed 3,014 U.S. adults, 45% of whom said they used a smartphone (Comstock, MobiHealthNews, 11/8).
Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted the survey by landline and mobile phone between Aug. 7 and Sept. 6. The results were weighted to represent the demographics of the U.S. adult population (Central Valley Business Times, 11/8)
Smartphone Health App Users
The report found that wellness and fitness apps were the most popular among users of smartphone health apps. Among the 254 smartphone health app users identified in the survey:
The report also looked at the use of health apps among certain groups of smartphone users. It found that:
Using Mobile Phones for Other Health-Related Purposes
The report also found that 31% of mobile phone owners have used their phones to look up health information, up from 17% in Pew’s Mobile Health 2010 report.
According to the latest report, only 9% of the 2,581 mobile phone owners surveyed used text messaging to obtain health information (Comstock, MobiHealthNews, 11/8).
Source: iHealthBeat
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