The article about Pediatric Associates in CA has a nugget with a potentially outsized impact: the implication that VFC vaccines…
News 12/2/10
Quality Systems, the parent company for NextGen, names James J. Sullivan EVP, general counsel, and secretary. Sullivan is the former SVP, general counsel, and secretary of The TriZetto Group.
Central Florida REC selects athenahealth as a preferred solution provider. Checking out the Central Florida REC’s website, I don’t see mention of any preferred vendors so I’m guessing they are finalizing details with their selected companies.
SuccessEHS makes its PM/EHR solution available for the iPad.
A new report suggests that providers implementing EHRs could see an increase in medical liability insurance, at least in the short term. While that initially sounds counter-intuitive, Conning Research and Consulting suggests that liability carriers are concerned that software failures and medical coding errors could occur more frequently in the early stages of EHR implementation. The report also predicts that the cost of defending medical liability claims could increase as more lawyers begin using data from electronic sources.
Northwest Primary Care (OR) contracts with Sage to provide the IMPAX PACS. The 25-physician practice already uses Sage Intergy PM and EHR. Sage offers IMPAX through an arrangement with Agfa Healthcare.
Most physician offices are turning to their vendor for help reaching Meaningful Use, according to our HIStalk Practice poll. That is pretty much consistent with a recent Sermo poll that concluded 45% of practices were looking for advice from their EHR vendor. A fewer number of practices will rely on RECs or their own internal resources. Meanwhile, our results indicate that consultants better focus their efforts elsewhere or increase their marketing efforts with physician practices. Our new poll to your right: For practices: are you running an ONC-ATCB complete EHR?
I’m happy to report that traffic on HIStalk Practice increased 27% in November, compared to last year. Actually, I am more than just happy. I am ecstatic that more people keep stopping by. Dr. Gregg Alexander has pointed out to me that the site meter is about to hit 200,000 visits, and, in the next month or so I anticipate we’ll reach 1,000 e-mail subscribers. As a recovering sales rep, I love looking at numbers when they are going in the right direction. Thanks to all the readers, subscribers, and contributors (especially the prolific Dr. Alexander) who are helping ensure HIStalk Practice is trending the right way!
Regarding this news bit: new report suggests that providers implementing EHRs could see an increase in medical liability insurance, at least in the short term.
I read that and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I decided to dig a little deeper, hoping to find an authoritative study (say, n=5000 maybe?), but alas, nothing. So I don’t have anything but experiential findings to refute this, but those include observing that in most of the implementations I’ve witnessed, there is usually a process put in place in the early days of an implementation whereby the billing department reviews any code assigned by physicians before the doc presses “send”! Then once they’re confident everything works as it was “sold”, they may omit this step. Also, I’m not sure what is meant by “software failures”, but again, it’s been my experience that everyone is so cautious and “on edge” during an implementation, that they’re almost hyper vigilant and ready for something unusual, often double checking everything including using their paper system as a shadow system. I’m sure someone will dispute “my study findings”, but I can’t help but wonder if this article, with no clear substantiation of facts, might be a “trial balloon” by the malpractice carriers (hey, are costs are going up or we need to generate revenue, let’s see what we can make up and run it up the flag pole) and even the trial lawyers. Am I getting paranoid? Or cynical?