The article about Pediatric Associates in CA has a nugget with a potentially outsized impact: the implication that VFC vaccines…
News 2/28/18
Top News
A time-motion study of EHR use in primary care clinics finds that providers spend more time working in the EHR than they do with patients during appointments. Providers gave patients non-EHR face time for only 16 minutes of the average 36-minute appointment.
HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests
Programming Note: #HIMSSanity is already setting in, with my inbox piling up with last-minute vendor meeting requests and press releases. HIStalk Practice will not publish next week, as I’ll be covering HIMSS18 over at HIStalk.com. Twice weekly posts will resume the week of March 12.
For those who are heading to Vegas for health IT’s biggest event of the year, be sure to check out HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS18 – your directory of 100+ vendors and their plans, giveaways, and networking events.
Also, stop by and see the HIStalk team at booth 11228. I hear we’re in Siberia this year, so friendly faces will be welcome. Plus, we’ll have those handy survival kits from Arcadia on hand to help get you through the long days of demos, educational sessions, and exhibit hall walkabouts.
I think most HIMSS attendees know that comfortable footwear (such as the pair I purchased above) is a must, but what about our other attire? A friend working in the vendor trenches is conducting an informal poll to help guide the fashion choices of a new employee who’ll be heading to HIMSS for the first time. (Apparently there has been some water cooler talk about the popularity of jeans over suits.) You can weigh in with your opinion here.
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People
Healthwise promotes Elizabeth Beem to CFO.
Lyle Berkowitz, MD (Northwestern Medicine / Healthfinch)) joins MDLive as CMO and EVP of product strategy.
Announcements and Implementations
In an effort to streamline e-prescribing workflows, Maryland’s CRISP HIE will integrate DrFirst’s mobile medication management app with the state-based PDMP, which it operates. Maryland prescribers will be required to review PDMP data before prescribing an opioid of bezodiazepine starting July 1.
Aprima Medical Software selects ChartSpan Medical Technologies as one of its primary CCM partners.
Membership-based primary care provider MDVIP begins rolling out a branded patient app developed by Medfusion that includes messaging, payment capabilities, and health records access.
Capital Digestive Care implements GMed’s cloud-based EHR for gastroenterologists across its 28 locations.
Telemedicine
MeMD adds behavioral healthcare to its line of telemedicine services for consumers and employer groups. The company tapped Mdlogix to help it develop its behavioral health assessment.
Teladoc reports Q4 revenue of $77 million and full-year revenue of $233 million. Quarterly and yearly visits both increased by close to 50 percent. The company’s acquisition of Best Doctors last summer contributed to strong gains in subscription access fees.
Sponsor Updates
- Healthwise publishes its patient education app on Epic’s App Orchard.
- AdvancedMD will exhibit at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons conference March 6-10 in New Orleans.
- Culbert Healthcare Solutions will exhibit at the AMGA 2018 Annual Conference March 7-10 in Phoenix.
- EClinicalWorks launches a cloud-based hospital EHR/RCM system that will start at $599 per bed per month with no upfront capital cost.
Blog Posts
- Medicity’s CEO Attends White House Meeting on Interoperability (Medicity)
- Four tips to improve office productivity & accelerate payments (AdvancedMD)
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There are a lot of fascinating take-aways from the time motion study, but they almost buried the lede:
“Our findings have important economic implications for family physicians. The original studies led by Hsiao that led to the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) used by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to value physician work, were conducted at a time when there was less work performed between visits and before the current evaluation and management (E&M) rules were enacted.38 In Hsiao’s original studies, non-face time was estimated to be 29% of the total visit time for primary care E&M visits,39 and were based on telephone surveys of physicians.40 Our study found this figure to be 54% of the total visit time. Furthermore, in the Hsiao’s studies, hypothetical cases based on current procedural terminology (CPT) codes were used. However, there are no CPT codes that describe when a physician addresses more than three issues in a visit, nor are physicians allowed to submit more than one E&M CPT code per day for payment.38 *****This implies that the relative value weightings of the CPT codes should be recalculated to increase payment for the significant EHR work time required in today’s primary care.*****” [emphasis mine]
That’s going to tick off some hospitals and a lot of specialists…because it’s true.