News 10/20/11

Emdeon expands the capabilities of its Emdeon Office Suite to include a Meaningful Use portal, statement automation, electronic patient payments, and analytics reporting.

Phreesia adds SOAPware to its list of Certified Integration Partners following the successful integration between Phreesia’s patient check-in system and SOAPware’s EHR.

Office Ally, a provider of RCM, PM, and EHR software and services, announces the relocation of its headquarters from Vancouver, WA to San Antonio. Office Ally CEO Brian O’Neill says the move better accommodates growth and provides a “much more friendly business climate.” The company expects to hire 250 employees within six months of its November move.

Clinical documentation software and service provider InHealthCDS partners with MD-IT to offer the MD-IT EMR.

Bizmatics introduces an in-house billing service to complement its PrognoCIS EMR.

The American College of Physicians issues a policy paper that address the re-use of health data for research purposes. It includes a proposed privacy rule that maximizes appropriate uses of information to achieve scientific advances without compromising ethical obligations to protect individual welfare and privacy.

OptumInsight publishes an online guide, “Keep Patient Data Secure: Simple Actions for a Digital World.” The information is targeted to physicians and includes recommendations for  communicating with patients and fellow physicians, an explanation of de-identified data, and considerations for participating in a health information exchange.

EMR provider SynaMed partners with transcription company StenTel to offer a combined EMR/transcription platform. The offering will include StenTel’s integrated natural language processing technology to code dictation into discrete data fields for import into the SynaMed EMR.

CapitalCare Medical Group (NY) chooses ImplementHIT’s OptimizeHIT training platform to prepare its 110 providers for an Allscripts EHR upgrade.

HIT software and service provider iMedX Inc. acquires the assets of National Medical Transcription. iMedX sells the TurboRecord EMR and TurboRx e-prescribing products.

Radiology Medical Group (CA) outsources its medical billing operation to Zotec Partners, resulting in a 24-employee layoff. The 14-radiologist group blames the move on rising costs and declining reimbursements.

Lytec names MediPro its 2011 Value Added Reseller of the Year.

Forest Hill Family Health Associates (NJ) expands its partnership with PatientPort to include care coordination services.

Medflow partners with the American Academy of Ophthalmology to deliver the Academy’s patient education tools through Medflow’s EHR.

Physicians across all organizational settings should expect average salary increases of 2.5% in 2012, compared to 2011’s 2.7% increase. Group-based physician specialists should expect the highest salary increases at  4.5%.

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