News 3/28/13

From BeatleJuice: “Re: EHR purchasing tips. Vitera offered some tips for practices shopping for EHRs. Their way of suggesting how to go about purchasing an EHR is a recipe for a disaster. There is only one way to separate the wheat from the chaff and that is for physicians to perform random reference checks with other physicians.” I agree with BeatleJuice that reference checks are an essential part of the evaluation process. Mostly vendors willingly provide prospects with the names of their happiest clients, but savvy shoppers should dig deeper into their personal network to get opinions from “random” users. A site visit or two to other practices is also a worthwhile investment of time.

A consulting firm finds that hospital-owned physician practices around Kentucky are losing as much as $100,000 per year per doctor. Losses tend to be higher the longer a hospital has had employed physician groups and the more physicians that a hospital employs. To turn things around, consultants recommend that hospitals expand the use of remote care technology to reduce treatment costs for patients in rural areas, plus make physician payment plans more flexible. Déjà vu from the 1990s.

The NCQA launches its Patient-Centered Specialty Practice Recognition (PSCP) program, which extends its PCMH recognition program to specialty physicians and requires provider commitment to improving access, communication, and care coordination. Sixty-four organizations have enrolled as early adopters for recognition in 2013.

The Wall Street Journal looks at the use of physician-patient e-mail communications, which patients generally love and physicians often shun because of the lack of reimbursement and concerns with privacy and security. Maryland OB/GYN Mark Seigel, MD is a proponent of e-mail communications, saying the biggest benefit is the goodwill it generates:

“It improves the reputation of my practice. I get very good ratings online.”

Lutheran Family & Children’s Services (MO) will implement practice management software from Benchmark Systems for its obstetrics practice.

MED3OOO names Judy Stovall from PriMed the winner of its video case study contest.

There is still time to participate in our annual HIStalk Practice reader survey, which is different than the HIStalk survey we ran a couple weeks ago. It takes one minute or less to answer and your input is appreciated!

ADP AdvancedMD launches a Website that provides a timeline for practices as they prepare for the ICD-10 transition.

 

E-mail Inga.