EHR Incentive Program

Anything you need to know about the HITECH Act and your stimulus money can be found here

http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/

Medical Voice Products, Inc. EMR gains Certification

Medical Voice Products, Inc. EMR gains Certification

Is Your EMR A Spoon Or A Backhoe? – Importance Of How An EMR Vendor Implements Meaningful Use

It has become more and more apparent that the way an EMR vendor implements the meaningful use requirements is going to be critically important to a doctor’s successful adoption of the meaningful use criteria which is of course essential to get the $44,000 in EMR stimulus money.

I think it’s easy for doctors and practice managers that aren’t as familiar with the various EMR software and with the details of the EMR stimulus to get confused. On face, it seems that the effort to get the EMR stimulus money shouldn’t be affected by which EMR software you choose as long as it is an ONC-ATCB certified EMR. However, this is just categorically WRONG!

The EHR certification is meant to tell you that it CAN meet the meaningful use guidelines. It doesn’t tell you how easily it is to meet the meaningful use guidelines. It doesn’t tell you how well they integrated the meaningful use guidelines into your regular workflow. It doesn’t tell you how well it lets you delegate the meaningful use tasks to other staff members so you can optimize the doctors time. So, yes, EHR certification should mean it’s possible to show meaningful use. EHR certification does not make any claims to how effective that EHR software will actually accomplish the task.

Here’s a simple analogy:

If I wanted to dig a hole for a footing on a house, I could probably use a spoon to dig the hole. It would take forever to actually dig the hole, but a spoon could work. It would not be easy to use a spoon to dig the hole and quite honestly I’d probably give up before I finished, but with enough blood sweat and tears I could get the hole dug.

Of course, if I had a shovel, digging the hole would be much easier. I could get it done with just a bit of hard work. It would obviously go a lot faster than a spoon. Now, if I had a backhoe, digging the hole would basically be academic. Achieving the goal would be simple to accomplish, because the tool was designed perfectly to achieve it.

It’s worth asking yourself whether the EMR you use or the EMR you choose is a golden spoon or a powerful backhoe when it comes to achieving meaningful use. Maybe both can achieve the goal of meaningful use, but is it just made to look nice and shiny or was it really designed to make achieving meaningful use as painless as possible?

EMR And HIPAA
Dec 18, 2010

New England Journal Of Medicine Cites A Lack Of Patient Safety

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine released a study noting that medical mistakes were responsible for over 98,000 deaths and more than one million injuries each year. Since that time, hospitals have been focusing on different ways to improve patient safety. Despite efforts by hospitals to decrease the chances and rates of injuries to patients, a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine questions whether any progress has been made.


As part of the study, 14 hospitals in North Carolina were asked to participate, with 10 of the 14 being selected for inclusion. From 2002 to 2007, 10 admissions records from each hospital were randomly selected for review every quarter. After reviewing nearly 2,400 adult admissions records, the researchers concluded that 18 percent of patients were injured during their stay. Overall, there were 588 injuries to 423 patients, meaning some patients were injured more than once in a single visit.

Approximately 42 percent of the harms experienced by the patient were temporary, but nearly 43 percent of all harms required some intervention by doctors or nurses and resulted in an extended stay in the hospital. Three percent of the identified harms resulted in a permanent injury and 8.5 percent were life-threatening. In almost 3 percent of the cases in the study, the injury resulted in or contributed to the death of the patient.

North Carolina was selected for the study because it has been noted as one of the leaders in patient safety reform. Despite the state's focus on preventing hospital errors, the study found no statistically significant drop in the rates of mistakes over the six year period of the study.

In a Bloomberg interview, Christopher Landrigan, the lead author of the report, noted that the use of electronic medical records and better methods of tracking patient safety are key to reducing medical mistakes over time. The study notes that only 1.5 percent of U.S. hospitals have a comprehensive system of electronic records and only 9.1 percent have any form of electronic record keeping in use.

The study shows that despite efforts of hospitals and doctors to make patient safety a priority, injuries frequently occur while under their care. If you have been injured by the negligence of your provider or by any act of medical malpractice, it is important to discuss your options with an experienced attorney as soon as possible.
 
24/7 Press Release
Dec 18, 2010

Health Professionals Need Not “Reinvent The Wheel” For EMR/EHR Compliance

Electronic Medical Records (aka Electronic Health Records) are becoming a requirement for health care professionals in the coming years. December 13 marked a notable turning point in the healthcare debate - the Virginia Federal Courts rejected the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), declaring it as unconstitutional. While Virginia’s decision is only the most recent ruling, it sets the stage for the potential dismantling of Obamacare. Because the United States House of Representatives will transfer control to the Republicans, health care professionals have begun to question the safety of EMR/EHR funding. “The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, from which the EMR/EHR funding and incentives originates, is a different statute than the PPACA,” says Justin Barnes of the Healthcare Blog, a respected independent voice in the healthcare industry. Barnes points out that the funding for HITECH is grounded in law, and is drawn from the Medicare Trust Funds held by the US Treasury. As a result, physicians must prepare for when the EMR/EHR legislation takes effect over the next several years.

In other words, the Obama Health Insurance plan, and the EMR/EHR Mandate are two very different pieces of legislation.

PRLog 
Dec 18, 2010

Blumenthal Says Docs Eventually 'Will All Support EHRs'

Returning to the 2004 roots of the national health IT coordinator's role as cheerleader-in-chief for EHRs, Dr. David Blumenthal took advantage of a public speech last week to say that EHRs will indeed be in widespread use nationwide in the not-too-distant future.

"History has shown that things that improve healthcare become part of what is used. I propose to you that in a few years doctors will all support EHRs," Blumenthal said at the 18th National HIPAA Summit in Washington, according to Healthcare IT News. "Using EHRs will become a core competency for physicians. And once we've established that, it will be considered an absolute requisite."

The national coordinator then said EHR adoption will take an escalator-like trajectory once federal financial incentives kick in next year. "I think we're going to see the upward slope of the adoption curve within a year or two, but it will be difficult to predict the slope," Blumenthal said.

Another top HHS IT booster, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Director Dr. Carolyn Clancy, said that the pace of adoption will depend on how useful electronic health data is to physicians. "Information is the lifeblood of medicine," Clancy told the gathering. "Clinicians are trained to look at patients one at a time. But, what's missing is aggregated information." AHRQ, of course, is in charge of comparative-effectiveness research, and thus will be providing such aggregated information to help establish standards of care.

FierceEMR
Dec 16, 2010

Berwick: Repealing Healthcare Reform Would Be A Big Mistake

In his first appearance before Congress after his highly criticized recess appointment, CMS head Donald Berwick told a Senate panel that repealing the healthcare reform would be a big mistake, The Hill reports.


"I can't think of a worse plan," Berwick told the Senate Finance Committee. If the bill were repealed, seniors would not get the 50 percent discount for prescription drugs, senior access to preventive services like colonoscopy and mammography would vanish and plans to improve the care of chronic illnesses and be more transparent would disappear. "It would be a terrible plan," he said.

Berwick contends that "every person in America, and certainly every beneficiary of Medicare and Medicaid, should be able to get all the care they want and need, when and how they want and need it."

For Republicans, their first chance to grill Berwick was anti-climactic, despite irritation over how President Obama appointed him (bypassing a Senate confirmation). The hearing, which lasted 90 minutes didn't leave much time for questions at the end, something Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) took issue with, according to The Hill. "It's like asking us to drain the Pacific Ocean with a thimble," he said. "We ought to have time to ask the most important man in healthcare sufficient questions."

FierceHealthCare
Dec 15, 2010

Governor-Appointed Panel In Virginia Calls For Reform 'Regardless' Of Law

Calling Virginia's health system performance "mediocre," a panel appointed by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell recommended that the state work toward implementing the federal health law's provisions--and toward improving performance as a whole--despite a ruling by a Richmond-based federal judge on Monday deeming part of that same law unconstitutional.


Despite a fundamental opposition to the law, McDonnell--as well as all other governors both for and against reform--still must be prepared for whatever outcome is decided, reports Kaiser Health News, hence, the panel. The panel recommended creating an exchange run by the state where both individuals and citizens could obtain health coverage; increasing the number of doctors in the state thus, addressing the physician shortage; and a more team-based approach to healthcare that includes turning more decision-making authority over to nurses.

Still, the panel pointed out that most of its suggestions could be implemented regardless of the law's outcome.

"Health reform is a process, and successful health reform is a participation sport," the panel wrote. "The vast majority of these suggested actions are independent of the new federal law. This accentuates the fundamental point that health system reform can be in the Commonwealth's interest regardless of federal actions or inactions."

Bill Hazel, the state's Health and Human Services secretary, reiterated that point when announcing the panel's findings on Tuesday. "[I]t's easy to assume we are not interested in health reform, but we very much are," he said, according to KHN.

The panel cited the lack of individuals and small business with insurance access, despite the state's ranking No. 6 in the nation in terms of median family income, as just one reason for change.

"Since so many recommendations hold promise to improve quality, lower cost, or make insurance and care more affordable and accessible, opportunities for 'early adoption' should be prudently explored and acted upon," they wrote."

In related news, in response to the aforementioned judge's ruling Monday, the Justice Department said it will appeal the decision, reports the Wall Street Journal.

FierceHealthCare
Dec 15, 2010

Radiation Overdose, Alarm Fatigue Top List Of Health Technology Hazards

Considering that just last week, 700 healthcare providers at the Radiological Society of North America's annual conference signed a pledge to use less radiation, it should come as no surprise that the No. 1 health technology hazard heading into 2011, according to the ECRI Institute's list of top 10 hazards, is radiation therapy overdose.


"There's been a rapid growth in the number of treatment systems and an increase in their complexity," Jim Keller, ECRI's vice president for health technology evaluation and safety, told the Wall Street Journal.

Alarm hazards caused by desensitization, or "alarm fatigue" ranked No. 2 on ECRI's list while cross-contamination from flexible endoscopes, last year's top hazard, ranked third.

Flexible endoscope contamination issues "can inconvenience patients and create anxiety," the ECRI report says, according to WSJ. "[A]t worst, they can lead to life-threatening infections."

High radiation doses of CT scans and data loss leading to repeated testing, injury or death rounded out the top five hazards.

The rest of the top 10 hazards included:

Luer misconnections: Essentially, tubes, needles and catheters incorrectly connected with one another.

Oversedation during use of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) infusion pumps: Too much of a painkiller being administered to a patient on a medicine drip.

Needle sticks: Patients, providers or other staff members accidentally being stuck by needles.

Surgical fires: Which, according to WSJ, are nearly as common as wrong-site surgeries.

Defibrillator failures in emergency resuscitation attempts.

FierceHealthCare 12-9-2010

CMS To Fight Medicare, Medicaid Fraud With High-Tech 'Bounty Hunters'

Medicare and Medicaid fraud cost American taxpayers some $54 billion last year. (We've long believed that Medicare fraud is the unofficial state sport of Florida.) CMS has tried many approaches to catching some of the perpetrators, notably through the Recovery Audit Contractor program, but the bad guys always seem to be one step ahead of the G-men.


The Obama administration wants to go high-tech in its pursuit of fraudsters, sending out "bounty hunter auditors" to find waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid, according to the Huffington Post.

"We're told the auditor's weapons will be sophisticated new computer programs to scan Medicare and Medicaid billing records nationwide to check for patterns of bogus claims," writes columnist Diane Dimond. "And like the early bounty hunters of the old West these modern day crime fighters will get to keep a percentage of what they recoup for taxpayers. It seems like a win-win idea. Pilot programs in California, New York and Texas over the last three years re-captured $900 million that would have otherwise gone into the crook's pockets."

The administration estimates such cybersleuths could recover at least $2 billion in wasteful and fraudulent spending over the next three years. If fraud continues at its current pace, that's less than 1.5 percent of the $162 billion CMS will squander in that three-year period, but hey, it's a start, right?

FierceHealthCare IT
10-22-2010

Company Used Dementia Patients In $200M Medicare Scam

In what Justice Department officials are calling the largest fraudulent billing plot ever prosecuted by by a healthcare fraud strike force, HHS and FBI agents arrested four people--Lawrence Duran, Marianella Valera, Judith Negron and Margarita Acevedo-- for their alleged role in masterminding an unprecedented plot to defraud the Medicare program of close to $200 million.


The people involved were owners and senior managers of American Therapeutic Corporation (ATC) and Medlink Professional Management Group, Inc. The business model of the two Miami-based businesses was Medicare fraud. The companies allegedly netted $83 million in illicit payments from Medicare since 2003, The Christian Science Monitor reports. The four people and two companies were charged in a 13-count indictment for billing Medicare for community-based mental health services that were unnecessary or never actually provided.

The alleged illegal conduct in the indictment is "unlike anything we've seen before in terms of the nature and size of the scheme," Assistant Attorney General, Lanny Breuer said in a statement yesterday.

Unlike so much Medicare fraud that involves medical equipment and services, this case involves Medicare's Partial Hospitalization program, which gives mental health patients much-needed services in outpatient settings.

ATC and other defendants preyed on some of the most vulnerable patients, paying kickbacks to owners and operators of assisted living facilities and halfway houses in exchange for patient referrals. At ATC branches, bogus mental health therapy sessions were organized where elderly and infirm patients were left in rooms for hours, and received no legitimate or medically necessary therapy. Some of the patients suffered from Alzheimer's disease or dementia, and did not even know where they were. Others simply came to make money through kickbacks.

Some of the defendants were also charged with having "charting parties," where senior managers met regularly to write up fake patient medical charts.

Patient recruiters would find people who needed a place to stay overnight and offer them free temporary housing, cash or other bribes in exchange for agreeing to pose as patients.

Since the inception of the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) to fight Medicare fraud in 2007, Strike Force operations have led to charges against more than 825 defendants who falsely billed Medicare for more than $2 billion.
 
FierceHealthCare
10-22-2010

Obesity-Related Medical Costs Double Earlier Findings

Spending on obesity is worse than we thought. A National Bureau of Economic Research study found that obesity actually accounts for 17 percent of all medical costs annually, as opposed to 9 percent as previously determined last year.


The NBER research, conducted by John Cawley of Cornell University and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University, concluded medical costs in relation to obesity are closer to $170 billion per year than $150 billion due in large part to understated self-reporting and overly cautious research gathering, reports the Associated Press. The new report tries to take both factors into account and adjusts the statistics accordingly via balanced "repeated replications to estimate standard errors," the study's authors write.

"The authors tried to better establish that excess weight was a cause for medical costs," the AP reports. "Previous studies stopped short of saying obesity caused the costs because there was too great a chance other factors could be responsible."

The researchers compiled statistics from the exact same database used to come up with the $150 billion figure, which included information on 24,000 non-elderly adults gathered from 2000 to 2005. While the earlier estimate determined that obesity added $1,400 to a person's annual medical bill, the new calculations found that number to be more than $2,800.

Cawley and Meyerhoefer point out that the motivation behind their research is not to push for more funding related to the treatment of obesity, but simply to inform. "This paper does not estimate the medical care cost of obesity in order to argue that treatment of obesity should be prioritized above treatment of other conditions, but so that the medical care consequences of obesity will be more accurately known," they write.

FierceHealthCare
10-18-2010

Most Expensive Hospital Stays Cost About $18,000 A Day

The priciest hospital stays are also among the most futile. Among the top 0.5 percent of most expensive hospital stays, the average length of stay runs about 48 days and costs more than $500,000, yet more than eight in 10 of the patients involved face a major or extreme chance of dying, regardless.


This finding comes from data in Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's newly released report, Most Expensive Hospitalizations, 2008, which uses data from a database of hospital inpatient stays in all short-term, non-Federal hospitals. Data are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90 percent of all discharges in the U.S. and include patients, regardless of insurance type.

The top 5 percent of hospital stays averaged about $18,000 in charges per day in U.S. hospitals in 2008, according to the AHRQ. Hospitals charges for the most expensive stays tended to be for patients who were getting treated for septicemia, or blood infection, hardening of the arteries and heart attacks.

The average cost for the most expensive patient stays was based on the top 5 percent of stays by cost, or about 2 million inpatient stays. The stays lasted just under three weeks (19 days). The hospitals charged on average $191,984 for those stays.

Compared with the less expensive visits, patients on more expensive hospital stays also:

Were much sicker. They were about 10 times more likely to experience extreme loss of function (39 percent vs. 4 percent).

Faced a greater risk of dying in the hospital (9 times more likely to be in the highest category for risk of death in the hospital (28 percent vs. 3 percent).

Were older. Their average age was 59 vs. 48.

The most commonly listed procedures among the top 5 percent were blood transfusion (28 percent), respiratory intubation and mechanical ventilation (27 percent) and diagnostic cardiac catheterization/coronary arteriography (13 percent).

The most expensive hospital stays occur at a higher rate in the Northeast and West and least in the Midwest.

FierceHealthCare
10-18-2010

Costs Of Veterans HealthCare Could Grow By 75%

More veterans and higher care costs in the next 10 years will result in billions of dollars more being spent on veterans' health care in the next decade, states a Congressional Budget Office estimate released Oct. 7.


Veterans Health Administration care costs will increase to between $69 billion and $85 billion by 2020, up from $48 billion in 2010. The number of veterans eligible for VA care -- now at 8 million -- is expected to grow by between 700,000 and 1.3 million veterans by 2020. The wide gap in the CBO estimates is due to different assumptions about several factors: the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; the speed at which per-enrollee spending will grow; and the degree to which the VA relaxes enrollment restrictions. The lower forecast assumes that combined troop levels in both wars will decrease to 30,000 in 2013 and remain there until 2020, and that per-enrollee health care spending increases by 5% annually, about the same rate as in the rest of the U.S. health system.

The VA provides care to veterans at a level determined by veterans' military service. However, the VA also adjusts the care provided based on its annual congressional appropriations. VA spending increased by more than 9% on average each year between 2004 and 2009, reaching $44 billion, in 2009.

Amednews.com
10-18-2010

4,000 Social Security Numbers Possibly Exposed In VA Mismailing

Breaking news: A Veterans Benefit Administration office in Boston sent 6,299 benefit summary letters to the wrong addresses in September, more than half of them containing complete social security numbers, FierceGovernmentIT reports. Of the letters, 3,936 contained all nine digits of someone else's social security number, and 2,386 contained the VBA claim number of veterans based in the state. That's according to an update on data breaches the VA sends to Congress each month. The report blames the incident on a programming error.

FierceGovernmentIT
10-14-2010

When it comes to health plans, big spenders don't always deliver the best care, according to the new State of Health Care Quality report from the National Committee for Quality Assurance, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality.


Here's one striking example: Vaccination rates for kids with private plans dropped by nearly 4 percentage points, while rates continued to rise for children on Medicaid plans in 2009. It's possible that a popular misconception that ties vaccines to autism has driven some parents away from evidence-based recommendations.

The report examined quality data from over 1,000 health plans that collectively cover 118 million Americans and compared types of plan by category.

There's been a drop in patient satisfaction with health plans and physicians, according to NCQA. For example, while 64 percent of members with Medicare plans said they usually or always manage to get needed care, only 53 percent of members with commercial plans felt the same. The latter was a drop from a high of 80 percent in 2005.

Another area where commercial plans lag behind Medicare and Medicaid plans is monitoring of drugs, such as Digoxin, diuretics, anticonvulsants and ACE inhibitors, which patients use for at least six months.

Medicare (83 percent) and Medicaid plans (77 percent) also fared better than commercial plans when one compares the share of members who received persistent beta-blocker treatment for six months after discharge with a heart attack diagnosis. But the report does note that commercial health plans have seen a dramatic rise in those rates, more than 34 percent since 1996 to 74 percent in 2009. "Ultimately," the report notes, "what gets measured gets improved."

FierceHealthCare
10-14-2010

Hospitalizations for long-term care residents have become too routine, although they could be prevented, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.


The report, To Hospitalize or Not to Hospitalize, offers insights into factors behind high hospitalization rates and suggests solutions. It is based on interviews with physicians, nurses, social workers and family members of residents of long-term care facilities.

LTC residents account for a disproportionately large share of Medicare spending. According to KFF, 1.7 million Medicare beneficiaries in long-term care for all of 2006--or who died in care before the year's end--cost the program an average of $14,538 per person, more than twice the average expenditure for all Medicare beneficiaries. Medicare covers LTC residents' ER visits, hospitalizations and other medical treatments, but not stays in nursing homes, assisted living facilities or other long-term care programs.

Strategies the report suggests to cut avoidable hospitalizations include beefing up staff with more medical support and a philosophy shift about the appropriateness of hospitalization, instead of viewing it as the path of least resistance.

Among factors that drive hospitalization of LTC residents, interview participants said there were no disincentives to sending an LTC resident to the ER when a medical issue is suspected. Not only does hospitalizing a medically compromised resident reduce liability concerns and allow for more timely diagnostic tests, it also can be more convenient for physicians.

Staff and doctors may assume that the family prefers more aggressive treatment. And a lack of qualified staff, protocols and license restrictions, have further exacerbated the tendency to default to hospitalization. Often the perception of best care is 'Let's send Mrs. M to the emergency room and see what the ER finds,'" Dr. Cheryl Phillips, chief medical officer of the Bay Area nonprofit On Lok Lifeways, told Kaiser Health News. Some of the interviewees noted that residents often return from the hospital disoriented, on different meds and with new infections.

Dr. Donald Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told Kaiser Health News that better coordination was needed, saying too many people experience "disintegrated care."

"The goal is to change through redesigning the system," he said.

FierceHealthCare
10-14-2010

Court OKs Nurse Anesthetists To Practice Unsupervised

In the latest shift in physicians' fight to preserve their turf from encroachment by nurses, advocates of physician supervision of certified registered nurse anesthetists lost a battle on Oct. 8. That's when the San Francisco Superior Court ruled in favor of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Association of Nurse Anesthetists, affirming that California state law does not require nurse anesthetists be supervised by a physician.


The court's summary judgment affirmed California's opt-out of the federal supervision requirement. California initially opted out in July 2009, when the governor informed CMS of the opt-out in a letter.

The California Society of Anesthesiologists and California Medical Association lawsuit, which was filed in February 2010, called for the court to make the governor withdraw the opt-out letter and declare that under state law, a CRNA is not authorized to administer anesthesia except under the supervision of a physician. According to the CMA/CSA, the suit alleged that Schwarzenegger acted contrary to state law, which states that nurses who give patients anesthesia must be supervised by a licensed physician.

The judge didn't agree. He concluded that no state statute specifically stipulates that physicians must supervise nurse anesthetists who administer anesthesia and that federal regulations allow the governor discretion to opt out of the Medicare supervision rule and still follow state law.

The judge noted that current state law does not refer to supervision and that judicially adding a supervision requirement to the law would create ambiguity. State lawmakers may impose a supervision requirement if they wish. CSA noted that earlier court opinions came to a different conclusion.

A CMA press release echoes some of the ideas in an AMA press release last week that responded to an IOM report calling for nurses to play bigger roles in healthcare. Both press releases note that nurses are critical to the healthcare team, but don't have the same education and training as doctors, which must be code language physicians are increasingly deploying to tell nurses to stay off their turf. CSA and CMA may appeal the ruling.

California is one of 16 states that has opted out and allows CRNAs to administer anesthesia without physician supervision. Earlier this month, Colorado became the 16th opt-out state.

FierceHealthCare
10-14-2010

Medicare "Meaningful Use" Payouts And How It Works

There’s been a lot of talk (including myself) about the EHR stimulus money. It seems like meaningful use has taken the cake with most of the discussion with certified EHR taking a cozy second place. What I haven’t seen very much of is some practical analysis of the EHR stimulus money and the amount of money various practices will receive. So, I’m going to try to do my part to create some of this practical EHR stimulus money content.


Basically, the schedule shows you that you can earn UP TO $18,000 in 2011 (assuming of course that you can show “meaningful use” on a “certified EHR”). What hasn’t been discussed is how many doctors will be eligible for the full $18,000 in stimulus money and how many would only be eligible for $10k or $5k in stimulus money and how much allowable Medicare charges you’ll need to have to receive the full reimbursement.

The EHR stimulus Medicare payments will be paid based on 75% of the submitted allowable charges. For example, a doctors office which has allowable Medicare charges totally $24k or more will be eligible to receive the full $18k in EHR stimulus money. A clinic with $13.3k in allowable Medicare charges would only be eligible for $10k in EHR stimulus money. You can do the math for your own clinic.

Maybe this is a non issue for most clinics. I don’t know. I’ve never seen any published average reimbursement rates for a doctor. $24k doesn’t seem like a lot of Medicare reimbursement, but certainly there are some doctors who are under that amount. Later today I’ll post a poll so we can get a better idea of the average reimbursement rates for a doctor.

John Lynn
EMR And HIPAA.Com
10-13-2010

Doctors Offer Discount Services Through Social Media

In addition to Facebook and Twitter, healthcare companies are also using online discount coupon sites like Groupon to promote their services, attracting a large number of uninsured people with their bargain prices, reports the Baltimore Sun.


In fact, nearly 15 percent of Groupon deals nationwide are for healthcare services, Julie Anne Mossler, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based company, told the Sun. The website offered discounted eye exams, teeth-cleaning, electrolysis and chiropractic services, among others.

Katzen Eye Group promoted an exam and glasses deal for $50 via a Groupon deal-of-the-day email sent to tens of thousands of Baltimore area subscribers and millions nationwide. The offer "greatly exceeded our expectation," and attracted more than 300 patients, CEO Richard Edlow told the Sun.

But healthcare providers must bear in mind that sites like Groupon can just as easily deter clients, as companies can't control how their services or brands are conveyed on social media outlets, notes the Sun. For example, customers can post about a bad experience on Twitter or Facebook for others to see.

In addition, offering discount services can pose a financial risk. Companies could lose money if an offer becomes too popular, Chad Capellman, director of social media for Genuine Interactive, told iHealthBeat.

And as with other social media tools, healthcare companies must make sure they obey privacy laws when posting information to online discount websites, he added.

FierceHealthCare