News 6/28/12

From MGMA: the biggest challenges of running a group practice include managing finances with the uncertainty of Medicare reimbursement rates, preparation for reimbursement models that place greater financial risk on the practice, the ICD-10 transition, rising operating costs, and participation in the EHR MU program.

The 38-provider Mowery Clinic (KS) selects NextGen Ambulatory EHR/PM and Patient Portal.

Mitochon, a provider of free EHR, launches a free, integrated e-prescribing solution.

Atlanta Women’s Health Group (GA) contracts with VeriStor Systems to provide cloud services, data protection, and disaster recovery for its 30 locations.

Physicians have until July 6 to comment on NCQA standards for specialty practices wanting to become part of a PCMH “neighborhood.” NCQA’s specialty practice recognition program will be designed to recognize specialty practices that work with PCMHs to coordinate care, provide timely access, use IT to reduce test duplication, and work toward quality improvement.

The president of CVS Caremark’s MinuteClinics says the company plans to expand from today’s 565 retail walk-in clinics to 1,000 by 2016. He adds that the clinics support continuity of care by providing each patient a copy of their medical records at the end of each visit and by sending patients’ physicians a copy of the records either electronically or via fax.

Wal-Mart, by the way, has closed 33 of its retail walk-in clinics this year and currently has only 149, which far less than the 2,000 the company had projected in 2007.

Medical billing and collections company Alleviant announces plans to open a facility in Vermillion, SD and hire 120 people by the end of 2013. Alleviant already employs about 240 workers in South Dakota.

In case you missed it, we had our first HIStalk Practice Advisory Panel post yesterday. We asked the provider participants to share impressions of their EMR and other office technologies. Participants offered feedback on eClinicalWorks, GE Centricity, Pulse, Cerner, and a few others and most responses were quite enlightening. Some highlights:

As we apply to be certified as a Patient Centered Medical Home, the EHR’s registry function is critical to our ability to manage registrations of patients with various demographic, clinical, or therapeutic criteria. Identifying all asthmatic patients, for example, who do not have a current Asthma Action Plan by a search of our registry allows proactive patient scheduling and improved care.

Our EHR has easily customizable templates to fit my workflow.

Our vendor’s technical support has historically and notoriously been abysmal. That could very well hold true for other EHR vendors.

Secure messaging has gotten pretty hot recently. I’d love to it see fully implemented at my facility.

We do use a nifty system for security which involves initial authentication with a card swipe, but then system security via a sensor on the door.

The vendor needs to stop making claims that are not true.

If you’d like to share your impressions of the Panel post or if you are a provider interested in participating, let me know.

E-mail Inga.