Written by Deborah Robb, BSHA, CPC, Physician Management Consultant for TrustHCS:
The American Medical Association, not satisfied with HHS’s push-back of the ICD-10 deadline to October 1, 2014, has protested again. Perhaps one of the reasons for their continued dissent is lack of guidance and support.
While much has been published about the implementation of ICD-10 for hospitals,
Read More
CMS| News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Healthcare IT Security Issues with Christopher Paidhrin at PeaceHealth
Guest interview post from our media partners, iHT2′S blog: Christopher Paidhrin, SCO at PeaceHealth Southwest Med Center in Vancouver, WA shares some of his thoughts and views on healthcare IT security issues
Christopher Paidhrin, Security Compliance Officer at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Wash., took part in the panel discussion “Securing Electronic Personal Health Information (ePHI): From the Data Warehouse to the Point of
Read More
News:ICD-9 Code Freeze Extended 1 Year
Pat Brooks, RHIA, Sr. Technical Advisor at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today during this week's ICD-10 Summit that the ICD-9 code freeze, orginally scheduled for October, 1 2014 will be extended one year
Read More
5 ICD-10 Steps that Deliver Collateral Benefit for ICD-9
Guest post from Torrey Barnhouse, CEO of TrustHCS providing 5 ICD-10 steps that can deliver collateral benefit for ICD-9
While at HIMSS 2012, TrustHCS had the honor of sponsoring an executive roundtable on ICD-10. During the roundtable, speakers discussed five ICD-10 projects that should be continued, full steam ahead, despite the delay. It’s a good list and worth sharing.
In general, the panel’s advice was to identify ICD-10 tasks that have collateral benefit for ICD-9 coding. These are
Read More
Seniors are Losing Billions of Dollars Buried in Unused Benefits from Medicare and Other Agencies
Guest post by Peggy Gavan
According to a report released by the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a), millions of low-income older adults are missing out on over $20 billion in free and low-cost support that could help pay for health care, prescriptions, food, and utilities. The main reason why seniors are not taking advantage of these resources? They simply don’t know the money is there for them.
In response to this disconnect, the
Read More
Meaningful Use Stage 2 Changes Bring Big Differences to Record Release
Guest post by Steve Emery, Director of Product Management at HealthPort
The Meaningful Use Stage 2 Notice of Proposed Rule Making is out and it would bring sweeping changes to how hospitals and eligible professionals release records and other information to patients.
Essentially, CMS is dropping three Stage 1 reporting criteria and replacing them with a core requirement for patient online access to medical records. CMS’s goal is to move the release of information (ROI) process from labor
Read More
The Proposed Rule for Stage 2 Meaningful Use NPRM Now Available
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Stage 2 meaningful use was posted to the Office of the Federal Register today. The proposed rule outlines the next stage of meaningful use for the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs, which are administered by CMS.
CMS has developed a fact sheet to give providers an overview of the rule and how Stage 2 expands upon Stage 1 of meaningful use. The fact sheet can be found on the EHR Incentive Programs website
Read More
CMS Announces Re-Examination of Timeline for ICD-10 – Is the Pressure Off?
The following is a guest post from Doug Hires, Partner, Consulting & Advisory Services at Santa Rosa Consulting, Inc. on the possible ICD-10 timeline delay.
Many of you have likely read or heard this week that the acting CMS Administrator, Marilyn Tavenner, announced to the press following an AMA Advocacy Conference that CMS will "re-examine the timeframe" through a rulemaking process. She did not say when that rulemaking process will begin but said that CMS would send details about the
Read More
Race to the ICD-10 Finish Line Infographic
Infographic highlighting that ICD-10 is almost two Years Away and healthcare organizations must have a plan in order to race to the ICD-10 Finish Line
*Update: CMS has officially delayed ICD-10 to October 1, 2014
With the AMA writing yet another letter, this time to the HHS in hopes of stopping ICD-10. There are no current plans to stop ICD-10 implementation; therefore, with less than one year away, healthcare providers must race to meet the 10/1/13 compliance date. The following
Read More
AMA Continues Onslaught of ICD-10
The AMA(American Medical Association) has upped the stakes in the fight against ICD-10 recently writing a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to stop HIPAA’s required implementation of ICD-10 and to call on stakeholders to assess an appropriate replacement for ICD-9. AMA is stating that the implementation of ICD-10 will create no additional burdens on the practice of medicine and have no direct benefit to individual patient care, as physicians struggle with other costly transitions associating
Read More