News

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), and the Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) announced today the release of a final report that examines key issues related to operationalizing the definitions of “electronic health information” (EHI) and “designated record set” (DRS). The report is intended to serve as a resource to assist providers, health IT systems, health information exchanges, and health information networks in complying with the information blocking provisions of the Cures Act Final Rule.

Engage Venture Partners, a Minneapolis-based venture capital firm, recently launched with a focus on early stage medical tech companies. The firm was established to decrease friction between early stage medical tech companies and their investors by bringing its investments to market via special purpose vehicles (SPVs).

Health care organizations are increasingly turning to corrective action plans (CAPs) to address suboptimal audit findings and correct any internal processes and/or billing practices that contributed to identified issues quickly and efficiently.

More than simply road maps to mitigate or remediate the circumstances or conditions that contributed to problematic audit findings, CAPs also help health care organizations reduce future billing compliance risks—and significantly enhance their ability to achieve revenue integrity.

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic grabbed much of the healthcare system’s capacity and the nation’s attention over the past two years, organizations have continued to deal with a rising undercurrent of opioid abuse.

While opioids haven’t received the press during the pandemic, the toll remains high — and grew higher, during the pandemic.

Faulty and errant documentation and coding are driving outpatient reimbursement inefficiencies, costing U.S. healthcare about $54 billion annually. Unaddressed, these costs are increasing alongside outpatient revenue, growing at a year-over-year rate of 9%.

For providers, the primary catalysts for change are an evolving regulatory environment that includes the ongoing transition to value-based care and restrictions, such as Medicare’s Two-Midnight rule. For patients, escalating healthcare costs and the convenience of outpatient care are pushing people away from hospitals.

TAMPA, Fla. – (May 18, 2022) – The eye health of caregivers is just as important as the patients for whom they care. That is why Mobile OptiX, an innovative startup that’s revolutionizing access to high quality eye care with its state-of-the-art mobile vision practice, launched its Caregiver Program to provide caregivers and their families with low-cost eye examinations and glasses. Now, during Healthy Vision Month, Mobile OptiX is pleased to announce that Modern Optical International is supporting the program’s launch by donating up to 1,000 pairs of its high-quality, fashionable frames.

Having identified the existing prior authorization process as a burden with wide-ranging impacts across multiple healthcare domains – contributing to provider burnout and care delays that put patients at risk – the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is seeking solutions that leverage its Health IT Certification Program to advance electronic prior authorization (ePA).

An analysis by RTI International on behalf of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) agrees that the ONC’s objective is worthwhile. Published in Evaluation of the Fast Prior Authorization Technology Highway Demonstration, the analysis examined prior authorization transactions before and after implementation of ePA and found the time between request and decision was 69% faster with ePA. Time spent on phone calls and faxes also decreased significantly, and transparency of prior authorization requirements was improved.

As third-party and internal payment integrity and compliance audits ramp up, healthcare organizations need to put in place proven processes that guide immediate and effective actions in the wake of problematic findings. With the clock ticking to correct any internal processes and/or billing practices that contributed to those findings, many organizations are turning to the corrective action plan (CAP) to ensure below par outcomes are swiftly addressed and mitigated.

Healthcare organizations that work from CAPs also find the chances of future billing compliance risks drastically reduced, and the ability to achieve revenue integrity significantly enhanced.

As the nation’s death toll from COVID-19 inches towards one million, the Biden administration is intensifying efforts to inform clinicians and ordinary Americans about treatments for the disease, and to make testing and treatment more widely available.

The real-world testing of certified health information technology products is finally underway. And while health IT developers have the obligation to assess how their products perform in the real world, the testing will have both direct and indirect effects on providers, patients and others.

Real-world testing (RWT) is one of the Conditions of Health IT Certificationestablished by the 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule issued in 2020 to test health IT products’ interoperability and functionality.

We live in an age where incredible amounts of data are available to us all the time. But in healthcare, the challenge can be finding the right data, at the right moment, to achieve the best outcomes for patients. EHR technology has been game changing, but it’s also led to practitioner frustration: While EHRs can present all the data available about a given patient, they’re not always good about surfacing precisely what a physician needs.

As the industry moves toward value-based care models, clinicians have an even greater need to optimize their patient care through access to high-value information. According to physicians like Bill Hayes, MD, CMO at CPSIand a member of the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) Executive Council, now is the time for stakeholders to improve EHR system functionality, and for EHR designers to enable input from clinicians and thereby ensure the most clinically relevant information is available at the point of care.

We live in an age where incredible amounts of data are available to us all the time. But in healthcare, the challenge can be finding the right data, at the right moment, to achieve the best outcomes for patients. EHR technology has been game changing, but it’s also led to practitioner frustration: While EHRs can present all the data available about a given patient, they’re not always good about surfacing precisely what a physician needs.

As the industry moves toward value-based care models, clinicians have an even greater need to optimize their patient care through access to high-value information. According to physicians like Bill Hayes, MD, CMO at CPSIand a member of the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) Executive Council, now is the time for stakeholders to improve EHR system functionality, and for EHR designers to enable input from clinicians and thereby ensure the most clinically relevant information is available at the point of care.

Improper documentation and coding are driving outpatient reimbursement inefficiencies that cost the US healthcare system approximately $54 billion annually. Left unaddressed, these costs will continue increasing in tandem with outpatient revenue, which is growing at a year-over-year rate of 9 percent as consumerism and federal mandates converge to divert care away from the inpatient environment.

For providers, primary catalysts for change are: 1) the evolving regulatory environment, which includes the ongoing transition to value-based care and reimbursement restrictions such as Medicare’s Two-Midnight Rule; and 2) the expansion in the types of procedures available on an outpatient basis. For patients, escalating healthcare costs at a time when their share of the financial burden is also rising, coupled with the convenience of outpatient care, are pushing them away from hospital settings.

WELLESLEY, Mass. – Feb. 8, 2022 – As payers step up efforts to identify and recoup improper payments, hospitals and health systems require innovative solutions to mitigate the potential threat these reviews pose to the bottom line. To meet this need, Hayes, a leading healthcare technology provider that partners with the nation’s premier healthcare organizations to improve revenue, mitigate risk and reduce operating costs, has launched External Audit Workflow to streamline management of external audit responses.

“The volume of external audits is rising exponentially as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other payers search for every dollar they can recover from over-coded or otherwise improperly filed claims,” said Peter Butler, president and CEO, Hayes. “To protect their hard-earned revenues and reputations, healthcare organizations need a strong first line of defense – an external audit management process that is collaborative, efficient, and comprehensive. That is Hayes’ goal with the launch of MDaudit Enterprise External Audit Workflow.”

TAMPA, Fla. – (February 3, 2022) – State-of-the-art eye care delivered to you. Seeking to address the gap in eye care for long-term care (LTC) patients, innovative startup Mobile OptiX is revolutionizing access to quality eye care with its state-of-the-art mobile vision practice. Offering a full spectrum of both optometry and ophthalmology services and treatments throughout Central Florida, Mobile OptiX brings highly qualified eye care professionals directly to the facility, where they leverage the advanced diagnostic technologies within its self-contained mobile clinic to provide quality eye care that helps prevent unnecessary vision loss.