3 key areas where the recent Supreme Court ACA ruling will spur technology innovation in the healthcare industry
Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the ACA (Affordable Care Act's) individual mandate ruling it constitutional as a tax or penalty. The mandate would require everyone to have health insurance beginning in 2014 forever changing the way the country views healthcare. With this announcement, we can now move forward with the modernization of healthcare delivery through technology
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Healthcare Policy Regulation & Reform | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Infographic: Staffing and Health IT Adoption
HIMSS recently published an infographic on staffing and health IT adoption shown below on their official blog highlighting the growing demand for qualified health IT professionals. With a 66% increase in IT staff shown in the infographic highlights the growing need for qualified health IT professionals to support all related HITECH initiatives. Earlier this year, HIMSS released a leadership survey stating that IT staff shortage was the key barrier to meeting IT priorities.
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Medical Transcription & EHRs: Remaining Atop Technology and Industry Changes
A vital aspect of health care, medical transcription is a multi-billion-dollar industry, which is undergoing significant changes. Medical transcription has been a fundamental and necessary aspect of the healthcare industry for a long time. However, the continuing development of transcription-related technology is changing the way medical transcription works. To adapt and remain efficient, healthcare-affiliated institutions must adopt these new technologies as they come. Medical transcription
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Breaking News: Supreme Court Upholds ACA
The United States Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by a 5-4 vote, ruling that the individual mandate qualifies as a tax. Chief Justice John Roberts, who was the deciding vote that deemed the mandate constitutional according to Bloomberg Law’s SCOTUS Blog. The cornerstone of the controversial individual mandate would require most Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty. After the ruling, SCOTUS blog watchers stated, "The bottom line: the entire ACA is upheld, with
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Hospitals: Are You Ready for an ACO?
Contributed by Michael Sandwith, Director of Business Development at ICA
The Accountable Care Organization (ACO) aims to change the way hospitals deliver care by changing the financial incentives. There are different payment structures than can be used to encourage hospitals to lower costs, improve quality, or both. Since the goal of an ACO should be to lower costs and improve quality, using an accountability payment structure – one in which costs and quality are linked–will be the most
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How Will The New NHS Reform Affect You?
It was earlier this year we saw the outcry by doctors and staff when the new NHS reform was released. An £80 billion budget was awarded to patient care with general practitioners while 20,000 staff members are expected to lose their jobs and 151 primary care trusts are abolished. For doctors around the country this is an unwelcome reform, one that will see them competing on price for NHS resources where before the tariffs were set in stone. This reform has been designed to encourage general
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Interview: Understanding Clinical Language Understanding with Carina Edwards, VP Solutions Marketing at Nuance Healthcare
There is a growing demand to extract structured, "actionable" information from unstructured (dictated) medical documents. Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) technology allows a computer to read and understand electronic free text and extract data for use in countless applications across the healthcare spectrum. To understand and learn more about CLU technology, HIT Consultant spoke with Carina Edwards, VP, Solutions Marketing at Nuance Healthcare for a deep dive into:
CLU
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3 Implications of 3M’s Open Source Health Data Dictionary
Last month, 3M Health Information Systems released their Health Data Dictionary as open source software making it free and available worldwide. The open source contract is part of an agreement with U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), 3M Healthcare Data Dictionary will provide the core technology to enable semantic interoperability for the joint DoD/VA integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR), making it possible to share medical knowledge and secure patient
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Video: How to Fill Coding Documentation Gaps When Converting to ICD-10
Here is a recent ICD-10 Summit Wrap up video interview with Mary Stanfill, MBI, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, FAHIMA, vice president of HIM consulting services at UASI talks about coding documentation gaps and the best ways to fill them in converting to ICD-10. Stanfill provides the following tips on addressing coding documentation gaps:
Identifying high risk areas suchas surgical procedures for amputations must be coded as mid, high, or low in order code the case
Improve physician/clinician
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Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) and MAC: Failure and Success in 2012
By Lori Brocato, Audit Product Manager, HealthPort Lori Brocato, Audit Product Manager, HealthPort writes about the failures and successes of Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) and Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC)
The latest CMS figures report nearly $600 million was recouped from healthcare providers in the first quarter of 2012 alone. Added to earlier overpayments, providers have “given back” over $1B since the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program began.
The success
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