Editor's Note: Dr. Jon Elion is the founder and CEO of ChartWise Medical Systems, He is a practicing board-certified cardiologist in Providence, RI and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University.
After decades of experience with ICD-9, we have learned and come to grips with its quirks. We do not yet have that comfort level with ICD-10 -- after all, it’s still pretty new to most of us in the U.S. I’m not really concerned about the diagnosis side of ICD-10 and its Clinical
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
6 Reasons Why ICD-10 Safe Harbor Is Dangerous for Healthcare Delivery
Editor's Note: The Coalition for ICD-10 has issued the following statement in response to the recent efforts to create a "safe harbor" for physicians, which would prohibit claims from being denied due to incorrect or unspecified ICD-10 codes, will result in dangerous consequences for the healthcare delivery system.
Multiple bills have been introduced in Congress that create a “safe harbor” for physicians by prohibiting claims from being denied “due solely to the use of an unspecified or
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Information Blocking in Health IT: Myth or Reality?
Editor's Note: Irv Lichtenwald is president and CEO of Medsphere Systems Corporation, the solution provider for the OpenVista electronic health record. Prior to joining Medsphere, he served as CFO of Advent Software, a leading provider of investment management solutions. Between 1995 and 2003, Irv led Advent through three public stock offerings.
Do we believe in something we can’t see?
The suggestion has been made that some vendors are actively engaged in “information
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How Apple, Qualcomm & Lawyers will Revolutionize Healthcare
Editor's Note: This post is written by Jeffrey Vogel, David Wong and Kathleen Collins from Bulger Partners, an advisory firm that specializes in healthcare IT.
The opportunity for technology in healthcare is monumental – and it’s no surprise that change is needed. Healthcare is a cumbersome, $3 trillion industry bloated with high costs, inefficiencies, and information asymmetries. Today, the wealth of data being created in medical settings is often not archived, shared, or
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Will Interstate Telemedicine Further Accelerate the Exodus of Physicians?
Did you know that you are a “telemedicine provider”? No? I can’t blame you for not knowing, but you are, and always have been. Well, maybe not always, but certainly since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Better yet, you provide free telemedicine services. Here is an idea: on the home page of your practice website, you should add a big huge flashing banner saying “Free Telemedicine Services!” Still hesitating because you are not using fancy monitors when you take calls from
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How Accountable Is The Care Without Behavioral Health?
Continuity of care, accountability of care, unlikely without Medicare Shared Savings and Meaningful Use health IT incentives for mental and behavioral health providers
I could understand completely if many behavioral health providers and facilities feel like the proverbial red headed stepchild. All this energy and money poured into improving healthcare through comprehensive information technology (IT) systems and behavioral health is left holding an empty basket.
Even with regard to
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5 Cultural Pitfalls To Avoid In Health System Integration
Editor's Note: This spotlight article was recently included in PwC's Q1 2015 US health services deals insights report.
These days it seems every health system is in the middle of a transformation — be it buying, selling or trying to integrate the assets it has amassed over time. Being in the business of transformation, this means we find ourselves invariably and repeatedly answering the question, "What are the big stumbling blocks to avoid?"
Without fail, our answer will include some
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Why Healthcare Is Incapable Of “Plugging-In” New Solutions
The first time I heard Par8o’s tagline “Healthcare’s Operating System,” I remember thinking to myself, “what the hell does that mean?”
I now think I have a pretty good idea.
Over the last two and a half years, my partners and I have been on a journey to transform the healthcare consumer experience. We began this journey by developing a patent-pending process for creating virtual health insurance cards. Beyond providing consumers real-time information on plan benefits, the
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Parity Not Apparent: There Is No Biopsy for Mental Illness
Getting legislation through Congress—often a monumental battle—is one thing. But implementing new laws may be a greater challenge simply because they require so much sustained energy and attention.
Take mental health parity laws, for example.
Congress passed the Mental Health Parity Act (MHPA) championed by Sens. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) in 1996. The law prohibits employee-sponsored group health plans from charging more in a year or over a lifetime for mental health
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The Death of Fee-for-Service in Healthcare
On April 16, 2015, President Obama signed into law H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015(MACRA), effectively sentencing Fee-for-Service (FFS) to death. The best explanation for how FFS is destroying the nation comes from Charles Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and ad-hoc health luminary, who is equating what American doctors do, to raising rattlesnakes so they can collect the bounty for dead rattlers offered by the government in an effort to combat a
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