Workforce

David Rinehart, MD, a primary care physician at CaroMont Health Southpoint in Belmont, N.C., learned the importance of accountable care in just one patient visit. "I was seeing a 55-year-old patient who told me 'I'm doing much better now.' I was shocked to discover that he had recently been hospitalized for a perforated gastric ulcer, but we had no record of that - no fax from the hospital or anything. That's something that's just too important to not get communicated."

The business of healthcare is complex and is often not clearly understood by the patient or even by the medical office staff. Here are five steps that medical practices should take to help patients understand medical bills and be better prepared to handle them.

Survey respondents expect the trend of employers increasingly shifting health insurance cost to employees to continue.

According to a recent study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, nurse burnout has been linked to higher rates of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which therefore costs hospitals millions of additional dollars each year.

A new survey of 200 healthcare provider CEOs shows that nearly half haven't identified a potential successor to the top management spot at their organization and only 17 percent feel they have someone who is prepared to step into the top spot.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will penalize hospitals for readmissions beginning this autumn. As a result, many healthcare providers are taking a cold hard look at their bottom line in an effort to meet or exceed projected targets for the year. The difficult part, of course, is that each healthcare provider has its own unique challenges. There is no "one size fits all" solution.

In 2010, Arkansas hospitals contributed an estimated $10.3 billion to the state's economy and directly employed 42,300 people, according to a recent report published by the Arkansas Hospital Association.

Healthcare added 12,000 jobs to the nation's economy in July, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Studies have illustrated the potential benefits of EHR adoption, such as improvement in the clinical care process and the overall patient experience. EHR implementation, however, can also have a significant impact on operational efficiencies, creating opportunities for healthcare organizations to leverage the same workflow automation capabilities to improve a number of cumbersome administrative processes to drive bottom line improvement.

Telehealth's promise of opening a virtual connection between clinicians, organizations and patients offers the opportunity to increase patient access while improving care continuity. But telehealth can also provide business benefits for healthcare providers.