News 11/21/13

From TruthSeeker: “Physician dissatisfaction. KLAS had a report on ambulatory EMR usability earlier this year that seems to contradict the recent IDC Health Insights report. KLAS found 55 to 85 percent of physicians were achieving high usability with their EMRs and only eight percent said they were unable to achieve even moderate usability. IDC claims that lost productivity was the top reason that almost 60 percent of physicians were dissatisfied with their EHRs.” In looking at the KLAS report it appears the focus was more on “usability” than “productivity.” Can an EMR be easy to use but not necessarily a boon to productivity? Participants in the KLAS survey were primarily physician leaders at practices with 25 or more providers, so it’s likely the KLAS survey population included an abundance of EMR champions and power users. Given the differences in the studies I don’t think you can conclude their findings contradict one another. In terms of physician dissatisfaction, I’m sure there are plenty of  “in the trenches” providers who are dissatisfied with their existing EMR products and have legitimate concerns over lost productivity.

RelayHealth Financial announces that all its financial connectivity solutions meet the current ICD-10 standards and that ICD-10 testing is available at no cost to its customers.

Hartford HealthCare Medical Group (CT) selects MediRevv to provide A/R liquidation management services for its 250 providers.

MDS Medical, Greenway Medical’s top-producing channel partner, acquires the PrimeSUITE assets and customers of EHRsolutions, Greenway’s second largest reseller.

Ophthalmology Associates (WI) selects SRS EHR for its six providers.

eClinicalWorks will invest $50 million over the next 12 months in addition to the $25 million it had already committed to enhance and expand population health solutions and patient engagement tools under its Health & Online Wellness business unit.

If you follow HIStalk regularly you may have read about my ongoing attempts to secure new insurance coverage through the HealthCare.gov marketplace. Today I got an email from the new carrier requesting additional information and asking me to name my primary care provider. I rarely get sick and haven’t had a PCP in years, so I went to the Internet to search for a potential candidate. I ending up reading a number of patient reviews from sites like Healthgrades, Yelp, and Vitals.com and found a disturbingly high percentage of doctors with ratings below the national average. I was left wondering if, 1) my new carrier only attracts crappy doctors, or, 2) people are more prone to post reviews if they have a negative experience. I am betting on the latter (and of course hoping not to test the theory any time soon). I did finally select a physician who had very positive reviews from both an ER nurse and a pharma rep. The experience has me thinking that physicians would be well-served to send their (happy) patients to these ratings sites in the same way my hairdresser and veterinarian do.

The AMA House of Delegates calls for continued advocacy to delay or cancel the implementation of ICD-10 and to seek federal legislative and regulatory reform to require funding assistance for physician practices to offset the cost of the transition.

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