News 10/24/13

A Forbes article highlights Practice Fusion’s possible privacy problems stemming from  their practice of emailing patients to request physician reviews. This is a topic we mentioned a couple times on HIStalk Practice, including in this post by Dr. Gregg. The article criticizes Practice Fusion for possible HIPAA violations, drawing the above response from CEO Ryan Howard. While Howard contends the accusations are “false,” Forbes’ Kashmir Hill stands her ground and a few other readers pile criticisms on as well (check out the comments at the end of the article.) Practice Fusion has added a new blog post further clarifying their patient survey policy, but I doubt we’ve heard the end of this story.

Rush Health (IL) endorses athenahealth’s EHR and PM services for its 300 affiliated private physician members.

CMS publishes the 2013 Interim Feedback Dashboard User Guide to assist EPs with accessing and interpreting the status of PQRS data to monitor claims-based individual measures and measures group reporting.

The 150-provider Rothman Institute (PA) selects White Plume’s ePASS product suite to automate the charge capture process and prepare for ICD-10.

More than three-quarters of parents participating in a University of Michigan poll would likely seek email advice for their children’s minor illness if that service were available, though almost half feel the consult should be free. What’s unclear from the report is whether parents think physicians should not charge for this service, or, if they believe that insurance should pick up the tab for the consult. Regardless, we are clearly a society that believes we are entitled to many things.

The clever folks at NueMD produce a Miley Cyrus “Wrecking Ball” parody that satirizes how doctors at small medical practices are being knocked out by a “wrecking ball” masquerading as government regulation and payer obstacles. It might be funnier if it didn’t hit so close to home.

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