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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Healthcare Policy Regulation & Reform | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
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 of
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Video: Where Does Accountable Care Start?
Hospitals considering accountable care strategies have plenty of options to choose from, but deciding where to begin can be confusing. Joseph Damore, Vice President of Engagement and Delivery for Premier, answers the following questions during this video interview:
How can hospitals engage staff in Accountable Care?
What can hospitals do to transition from fee for service to population health?
Will the Accountable Care movement continue regardless of the fate of healthcare reform?
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Video: Pulling Off the Band Aid:Easing the Pain of Healthcare Reform
In this webinar, Dr. Russell Faust discusses the importance of Social Media and Integrative Medicine in developing an ACO (Accountable Care Organization).
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Could Technology Be Driving The High Cost of Healthcare?
Written by Ahmed Mori at Care Cloud:
You wouldn’t know it from the overwhelming amount of positive press it receives, but amplified use of technology in healthcare could be one of the driving factors behind the high cost of healthcare in the United States.
However, it’s not the technology that you’re thinking of.
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