News 5/3/10

e-MDs collaborates with the University of Texas on a summer internship program to promote health IT. The Health IT Summer Certificate Program will permit 50 students to work full time for nine weeks for e-MDs and other HIT companies. e-MDs likely hopes to find a few permanent candidates to fill the estimated 85 positions it plans to add this year.

A standardized claim form and a single set of submission and payment rules could provide physicians $7 billion in direct savings per year. Authors of this study estimate that if health plans standardized their rules, physicians could save on billing operations, as well as approximately four hours per physicians and five hours per practice support staff member per week.

MedLink introduces podiatry-specific modules and functionality for its TotalOffice ER.

Billing service provider Healthcare Billing Consultants (PA) selects Sage’s Intergy practice management and analytic tools for its 80 providers.

athenahealth’s Q1 results: revenue up 33%, EPS $0.01 vs. $0.04. News that spending was up 72% without immediate growth wasn’t taken well by investors, with shares dropping 21% on Friday and pretty much holding there Monday.

The CEO of Akron Community Health Resources blames implementation of its new EHR system for employee paycheck delays. The practice, which recently installed eClinicalWorks, is holding paychecks a couple of days while waiting for incoming insurance reimbursements to cover its $85,000 payroll. Ouch.

meridianEMR releases its mMobile iPhone application to allow providers to access and update patient information on their meridianEMR systems. Coming soon to the Apple iTunes store.

Peninsula Regional Medical Center (MD) selects eClinicalWorks EMR for its employed physicians at the Peninsula Regional Medical Group. The Medical Center will also promote eCW adoption with affiliated community physicians and implement eCW’s Electronic Health eXchange as its interoperability tool.

Thibodaux Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Clinic (LA) and Sonographers-On-Site (LA) implement NovaPACS by NovaRad.

A five-physician primary care office used its EMR to determine how each doctor spent his/her day. In additional to seeing an average of 18 patients per day, each doctor received 24 phone calls, received 17 e-mails, and processed 12 prescription refills. In other words, physicians performed about three dozen tasks that were urgent, yet uncompensated.

I assume the writer of this article is a consultant, since it argues that physicians can eliminate inefficiencies and increase revenue by implementing an EMR. The items mentioned are not particularly original (EMR allows you see one more patient a day, improves coding, save time on chart pulls, etc.) Unfortunately, too few practices see the type of returns promised by this author (and EMR vendors). So, isn’t it time to either come up fresher products that make great ROIs achievable or at least come up with a fresher argument? Maybe I am feeling a bit Mr. H-ish today, but isn’t it time for the industry to improve its game?

Park Nicollet Health Services (MN) initiates a pilot with Zipnosis to offer patients an online diagnosis service. For $25, patients can complete a five-minute questionnaire and have nurse practitioners suggest treatment or prescribe medication. The response comes within an hour via text or email. Interestingly, CEO Rick Krieger is one of the founders of the precursor to MinuteClinic, suggesting that he’s convinced patients are tired of the traditionally time-consuming doctor office model, at least when in comes to minor illnesses.

E-mail Inga.