Healthcare Finance Staff
A new government demonstration project will bring together Medicare, private insurers and states to improve primary care and reduce costs, with healthcare information technology as an underpinning.
Florida is famous for its sunshine, but it's infamous for its Medicaid fraud. With the fourth largest program in the country, covering more than 2.1 million people, the state loses as much as $3.2 billion in fraudulent claims each year.
Hudson Health Plan, a Medicaid managed care organization based in Tarrytown, N.Y., is poised to roll out new software that will mine its voluminous stores of patient data to ensure that members who are in need of extra attention are directed to the nurses and case managers they need.
Capital BlueCross, of Harrisburg, Pa. has announced a three-year renewal agreement with McLean, Va-based Prematics, Inc. for their electronic prescribing service. More than 1,000 practitioners who provide care for a million patients across central Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley use the service.
"Investing in heath information technology is a top priority for health plans," says Robert Zirkelbach, press secretary of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) whose Institute 2010 conference takes place Wednesday, June 9 to Friday, June 11 in Las Vegas.
Tha latest PayerView Rankings indicate health insurers, on average, are paying physicians seven days faster and denying 12 percent to 18 percent fewer claims than last year.
In February, we told you about Insurer Connect, a New Jersey "multi-payer portal," developed by Cambridge-based NaviNet, that would serve as a "one-stop shop" for physicians to communicate directly with an array of health plans. Created in conjunction with AHIP and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, the healthcare information network seeks to reduce paperwork and communication hassles and, as one health plan executive put it, make "better use of doctors' time."
New Mexico will be awarded $7 million in federal funds for its statewide health information exchange (HIE), having met all the requirements for strategic and operational planning.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will spend $73.2 million to update three Web sites that garner more than 500 million page views a year from beneficiaries.
CMS awarded the five-year contract to CGI Federal in a competitive bid.
Two days of discussion about the influence of technology on healthcare have produced at least one hard truth: Having the latest and best toys doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be successful.