Reimbursement
New efforts are needed to develop and refine quality-of-care and other performance measures that can assure new payment models will improve medical care without harming patients, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
As the Oct. 1, 2013, deadline for ICD-10 implementation bears down, HIMSS11 attendees were assured Tuesday that there's no need to panic.
As the government gears up to develop standards for meaningful use Stages 2 and 3, the American Medical Association and MITRE Corporation, on behalf of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, are working on a project to help test the collection of population health "in the real world."
The TriZetto Group, Inc., announced Tuesday that it has signed an agreement to acquire privately held Gateway EDI, a St. Louis-based healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) company. Officials said the combination of the companies' platforms will benefit both payers and providers by delivering integrated end-to-end real-time payment information.
More than 21,000 providers have registered to participate in the electronic heath record incentive program of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and about two-thirds are ready to confirm that they have met the meaningful use requirements.
There is a 50 percent likelihood of a complete government shutdown over the coming months, said former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich at Monday's opening keynote at the HIMSS11 conference in Orlando, Fla.
The debut of HIMSS' mini-conference HIT X.0 drew hundreds of attendees to a keynote featuring Aneesh Chopra, U.S. technology czar, and John Glaser, CEO of the Health Services Business Unit at Siemens.
BancTec, a Dallas-based company specializing in business solutions, business process outsourcing and infrastructure services, is showcasing its Healthcare Remittance Automation product during the HIMSS11 conference taking place this week in Orlando.
In an effort to increase efficiency and improve cash recovery on commercial bills, eligibility efforts and patient-pay accounts, the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, known as the MED, will be using Connance Agency Manager and Scoring with PARO charity care analytics.
Converting to the ICD-10 medical diagnosis code set is not for the faint of heart. It's likely to be complicated, expensive and may entail a loss of productivity that could take five-to-six years to gain back, according to experts. The conversion is federally mandated by Oct. 1, 2013, and unlike many times in the past, there's no indication it will be postponed.