News 3/3/11

e-MDs reports that 2010 was a record year in terms of revenue and employee growth. Employee count grew 31% to 275. I noted that the e-MDs booth at HIMSS was constantly busy, so I’m guessing they are getting their fair share of HITECH-related business.

Former PayPal exec Jason Portnoy joins Practice Fusion as CFO. He served as PayPal’s VP of financial planning and analysis and worked through PayPal’s IPO and acquisition by eBay. I’ll take that as a clue about Practice Fusion’s ownership strategy.

Advanced Pain Centers (MO) selects McKesson’s Practice Complete for physician billing, coding and reporting services.

Hattiesburg Clinic (MS) to will go live on Epic in September.

The Voice of America profiles the use of social networks in healthcare, focusing on Dr. Jeff Livingston of MacArthur OB/Gyn (TX). Dr. Livingston and his partners are social media savvy and actively use Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to communicate with patients. The practice also relies on Sage Healthcare software for its patient portal.

The AMA and 37 medical societies send a letter to the ONC urging more flexibility on the proposed next stage of Meaningful Use in order for more physicians to successfully participate. The AMA urges the ONC to “take into account the current technological realities and the financial and administrative burdens placed on physicians.”  Proposed actions include:

• Conduct a CMS and ONC survey of physicians who are and are not participating in Stage 1 to identify barriers to and solutions for physician participation before moving to Stage 2
• Allow physicians to exclude measures for meeting Meaningful Use that do not apply to their routine practice
• Remove any measure that requires adherence from a party that is not a physician
• Eliminate the high reporting thresholds for objectives that cannot currently be met due to the lack of available tools or health information exchanges
• Assess each measure from Stage 1 before moving it to Stage 2 to ensure each is relevant and needed.

Meanwhile, AARP, AFL-CIO, Consumers Union and other organizations send their own letter to the ONC, applauding Stage 2 requirements and even identifying areas that could be strengthened. And the lines are drawn.

Those wacky guys at Nuesoft Technologies release a new video as part of its “Who’s Your Biller” series. Nuesoft was nominated for a HISsie in the most fun vendor category, by the way. They didn’t win (athenahealth took the honors) but they were definitely worthy contenders. Nuesoft also just added a couple new podcasts to its site. These short clips are not silly and fun like the “Who’s Your Biller” video, but informative and worthy of a peek, nonetheless: Regulatory Hurdles Confronting Telemedicine  and College Health Insurance Billing.

ADP’s Acquisition of AdvancedMD

Yesterday we posted a  news blast about ADP’s acquisition of PM/EMR vendor AdvancedMD. Here’s my take: over the years AdvancedMD has won a couple of Best in KLAS awards for their practice management product and just over a year ago purchased PracticeOne EHR, which has also performed well in KLAS. With 10,000 physician users in 4,100 practices, they are hardly a fly-by-night player. Despite being profitable and  being owned by private equity investor Francisco Partners, their relatively small size has likely kept them out of a few deals. As Morgan alludes to below, plenty of small EMR companies have sold to big vendors (or disappeared altogether) leaving users with an uncertain future or as EMR orphans. Buyers don’t like uncertainty.

Now that it’s part of ADP, AdvancedMD immediately joins the ranks of the “safer choices,” or at least as safe as any EMR product or company can be in the face of unknown Meaningful Use requirements and health reform. ADP does not have any competing products, so product sunsetting is not a concern. Meanwhile, ADP gets to dip its toe into one of the hottest markets: HIT.

Only time will tell if the two companies will be able to achieve the synergies they desire, but from my vantage point, it’s a great strategic move for both companies. ADP’s stock price closed Wednesday at $49.83 (up less than 1%)

I also had a chance to chat with AdvancedMD president and CEO Eric Morgan, who shared a few highlights of the deal.

Give me some background on the acquisition.

I wanted to let you know you were the first ones we thought of and wanted to get something out to you today. We wanted to help you break some additional details and have this conversation out on HIStalk and on HIStalk Practice or both.

Basically the headlines you saw in the press release: ADP, a company that most of us know, has done a lot of homework in looking at the marketplace and made a decision. They have had a strategy in place to look at adjacent opportunities to grow their business and this is one they have been looking at for well over a year – meaning the smaller to medium size physician space that AdvancedMD targets and serves. So, they have gotten on this for some time.

AdvancedMD, while we were not for sale, being owned by a private equity firm Francisco Partners … they engaged in a conversation with them some months ago, which has led up to this today. The matchup between the two companies is very strong. They are certainly focused on our cloud-based, SaaS-based offering; in fact, they narrowed the field of opportunities down pretty quickly by saying that was the way they wanted to go. They were not going to offer an on-premise approach, so this is very much compatible with what they do with the rest of their business. This was a big part of what they saw.

The key is they saw value in the business we built here in serving these smaller physician offices, which you know, what we do is not easy to do efficiently and effectively. Certainly a lot of vendors in this space have struggled in this. They saw tremendous value in that. This is a big statement for healthcare IT, that a company the likes of ADP has made a big commitment, investment into moving into the space from outside the traditional list of folks that you and I are used to talking about.

I am correct in saying this is ADP’s first entrance into the physician EMR and PM world?

Absolutely.

What are the plans for keeping the existing management team in place?

I am going to be here. My management team is going to be l be here. In fact, the management was one of the things they focused on that they felt was a critical part of the acquisition. So they are going to keep us in place running as a division and we are going to continue to operate and grow the business from Salt Lake City, UT

Any plans to leverage ADP’s existing sales force, for example, through ADP’s Small Business Services group?

Yes, absolutely. If you look at their Small Business Services division, that group has across all industries nearly half a million businesses that use ADP products. They have 14,000 physician practices that use ADP products, representing over 45,000 physicians. As you can imagine, that opportunity of cross selling offerings and services is a significant part of this.

We will look at how we can work together and integrate products. All that is part of the plans and we are going to be rolling that out over time. Certainly for an ADP client who is interested in practice management or EMR, this makes a very good opportunity for the client to connect very quickly.

One of the key things I would say, which I think is really relevant, is this is a time when physicians – healthcare – is being asked to make major investments into HIT. We all know that, right? We just came from HIMSS we have Meaningful Use up to our eyeballs. The reality is that these are going to be fun and interesting and challenging times ahead of us. But, it is our belief that as times goes on, physicians, much like on the hospital side, more and more will be looking to a trusted leader and a trusted brand. And that scaling of an organization is going to matter more and more.

There are literally hundreds of players in this space today. I don’t know any informed person in the industry who would expect the same 100 to be around in the next few years. We believe this puts us in a very strong position to be able to give our customers the confidence that they are going with a very, very strong reputable organization like ADP and know that they have a long term commitment and relationship and investment in the marketplace.

And the other important thing is I think is that for our customers and prospective customers, it takes the question out of the market place: what will happen next for AdvancedMd, which is kind of the case with a lot of the players in this market. Knowing that the possibility that this day would come, the question would depend on who the acquiring company would be; that would dictate a lot of the impact on the customer. One of the most significant things – I can’t emphasize this enough – this gives clarity to the answer and it also gives the clarity that this is the product and organization that is going to be committed to going forward.

If we were inside a larger healthcare IT company, there would still be all the questions of survival of products and integration of product and which product is going to end up being the one to go with. For us, all the questions and anxieties are alleviated now. Some of the biggest competitors in the marketplace still have big question marks around this issue, but our path forward could not be clearer.

Anything else you would like to add?

I would say again the key theme here is this is an opportunity for growth and an opportunity for our employees and for our customers. We have been growing at approximately 30% compounded over the last several years. It’s kind of fun to think about growing at an even faster rate over the next five years as a result of this.

The intent is to make significant investment into our products, come out with more products, integrate them to existing products, and really do more and more. And that includes not only our physician practices, but also our billing partners. We have over 300 billing service companies that use our products to serve their customers. Those are a very important part of our strategy going forward and a big part of the value that ADP placed on the organization in terms of what we have done here.

What everyone should expect is more of the same, but even taking it to new levels in terms of our offerings and our scale. As I told my employees, we are going to be hiring and expanding and we are going to be growing, so there is opportunity across the board. We think that just having the ADP brand attached to our brand is very powerful in and of itself. The vast majority of our business comes in through the web and web marketing. By having such a big strong name behind us we believe that is going to get even better.

As I look at AdvancedMD and I think about all the possible outcomes we could have had, I really cannot think of a better outcome than this. If you had asked me two years do I think that ADP is a likely suitor, I would have said, “No.” It wasn’t on my list. But the more I know and the more I understand, the more I see our businesses are compatible; I would probably say the more sense this really makes and I really can’t think of a better outcome for our employees, for the future of the company, and most importantly for our clients and future clients, for all the reasons I have described.

What has been the reaction of employees and customers?

The reaction from the employees has been really good. A lot of excitement and buzz here. We feel like the timing couldn’t be better for this as we look to capitalize on what is ahead of us for the next few years in this marketplace and as we establish ourselves.

When you think about it, I count maybe six or seven or eight vendors, depending on who you put on the list, that are bigger than AdvancedMD, and certainly there are certainly many very large ones out there compared to us. We are of a size now that there are only a handful or two of folks that are actually bigger than us, yet there are hundreds and hundreds that are smaller than us.

I think this puts us in a position to stake a claim amongst the leaders and larger and most well known companies in the industry as we go forward over the next few years and look at the kind of adoption curve we are expecting. And it will give peace of mind to clients and prospects to know that they have that kind of backing, and that is very exciting.

We actually had a handful of clients that we ran through briefings in advance and it has been very positive. I just talked to one of my sales manager working on a fairly substantial client opportunity and it was interesting. The conversation took place in the middle of the sales cycle. We said, “OK, we want to talk through this announcement.” Their reaction was, “We are already using four ADP products, so let’s talk about how do we are going to make it all work together.” It’s just an anecdote, but the synergies that can come from this are powerful.

E-mail Inga.

News 3/1/11

BayCare Health System (FL) partners with eClinicalWorks to provide EHR to BayCare’s 3,000 physicians. eClinicalWorks also announces that it has completed interfaces with over 1,000 hospitals, including bi-directional interfaces with hospitals running Meditech, Cerner, Siemens, Eclipsys, and McKesson.

eClinicalWorks partner GroupOne Health Source is selected by Lake Regional Medical Group (MO) to implement eClinicalWorks’ EMR for its 50 affiliated providers.

KLAS reports that the ambulatory EMR replacement market is thriving, with over a third of providers looking to replace their EMRs. In the 100+ physician market, 43% of practices are replacing legacy systems. Physicians are more likely to consider vendors they consider enduring and stable, with the most popular choices being Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, Epic, and NextGen.

The American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons partners with Gateway EDI to provide claims processing and RCM services to its members. In case you missed it, Trizetto just purchased Gateway EDI.

Louisiana’s Children’s Special Health Services Program contracts with RMK Holdings to provide billing and EMR for its nine clinics. Looks like RMK relies on software from Clinix.

WorkSmartMD announces that it will provide free EMR software to physician clients utilizing its medical billing and PM services.

Three-fourths of physicians believe EHRs can improve care, according to a Sermo/athenahealth survey. However, compared to a year ago, physicians are less likely to believe that the financial benefits outweigh the costs and that EHRs reduce efficiencies and decrease costs. And sadly, the majority of physicians believe the quality of medicine will decline over the next five years. Speaking of athenahealth, last week the company announced a strategic alliance with Microsoft to connect athenahealth’s services with Microsoft’s Amalga platform.

GE Healthcare announces an iPad version of its Centricity Advance and Centricity Practice solutions. GE says it will give away iPads to all providers purchasing Centricity Advance by March 31, and also give them free access to the Centricity Advance iPad EMR app when it becomes available.

Practice Fusion also releases a new iPad option that uses LogMeIn Ignition. The EMR is free, but the app will cost you $29.95. In my HIMSS updates, I mentioned trying to get a peek at the Practice Fusion software. It never happened because Practice Fusion had only one constantly busy demo station. I assume they underestimated how many people would want to check them out.

HITEC-LA selects Office Ally as a preferred EHR vendor. The HITEC-LA website specifically says it has not yet selected any preferred vendors, though the Office Ally press release includes this quote from HITEC-LA’s executive director: “We selected Office Ally as our first EHR vendor to announce since many of our small and solo member practices are looking for a product that not only helps them adopt EHRs and improves the quality of care that they deliver, but ultimately keeps their costs as low as possible.” It will be interesting to see if any of the not-so-low-cost vendors make HITEC-LA’s preferred EHR  list.

The 21-physician Texas Orthopedics, Sports and Rehabilitation Associations will implement Encoda’s revenue cycle automation tool.

Flashback, of sorts:  a physician in Bono, AR (population 1,600) opens a once-a-week Barter Clinic for patients unable to pay with insurance or cash. So far Dr. John House (who holds the clinic out of his house) has accepted canned produce, manual labor, live animals, and baked goods in exchange for medical care. Richer patients can pay $45 for a clinic visit on Barter Days. Dr. House also runs a traditional practice in a traditional office in Jonesboro, AR.

The regional Hayes Clinical Laboratory (FL) partners with MedLink to provide its physicians financial assistance in implementing MedLink’s iSuite EHR. Hayes will subsidize up to 85% of the cost of  iSuite .

Mankato Clinic, a 120-physician group in Minnesota, selects Jardogs FollowMyHealth universal health record to provide online access to its patients.

Sage will integrate HealthUnity’s HIE solution into its Intergy product. I saw a prototype at HIMSS and I think Sage has the right idea. The HIE data is embedded directly into Intergy so you don’t have to jump to a separate portal. Look for its official release later this year.

Physician EMR adoption is nearing 50%, according to a new report that also predicts 18-20% market growth over the next two years. However, the company also predicted 15% growth in both 2009 and 2010; actual growth was a mere 10% and 13.7%, respectively.

Associated Radiologists (WV) signs a long-term contract extension with Zotec Partners to provide billing software for its 17 physicians.

The American Academy of Dermatology and American Telemedicine Association send a letter to Donald Berwick urging CMS to make teledermatology a covered service under Medicare Part B.

Health insurer Highmark will put tablets and kiosks into the offices of 100 Pittsburgh physicians. During the trial, patients will be able to swipe their insurance cards on the device while in their physician’s office. They will then be able to communicate directly with Highmark before meeting with the physician. Sounds cool, I suppose, though I can’t imagine too many scenarios where I as the patient would need to talk to the insurance company in advance. Doesn’t the office staff handle all the verification ahead of time?

Allscripts had a series of announcements last week in conjunction with HIMSS, including the launch of an app store and referral network. The Application Store & Exchange (ASX) enables clients and other organizations to add to the company’s open product platform, while the Allscripts Referral Network facilitates electronic patient referrals within Allscripts’ client base of 180,000 physicians, 1,500 hospitals, and 10,000 post acute care organizations (link to demo above). Allscripts also demonstrated the native integration between Sunrise Clinical Manager and Allscripts Enterprise and Professional EHRs. Finally, UK Healthcare (KY) will deploy Allscripts EHR and PM for its 6,000 physicians, pharmacists, and other providers and integrate it with its existing Sunrise Enterprise EHR.

The Birmingham paper highlights the recent growth of local company SuccessEHS. The 16-year-old EMR company, formerly known as EHS, just moved to larger office space and has added 45 employees (220 total) in the last year. CEO W. Sanders “Sandy” Pittman says Meaningful Use is “really fueling our growth today.”

The GAO tells the CMS to address inconsistencies between the Meaningful Use and e-prescribing incentive payment programs. To reduce duplication and reporting burdens for participating providers, the GAO recommends that the CMS encourage participants in the e-prescribing program to adopt certified technology. GAO also says CMS should also reconcile areas where the two programs are similar but inconsistent.

CMS says that more than 21,000 providers initiated registration for Medicaid and Medicare EHR Incentive programs in January and so far four states have paid out over $20 million. In addition, as of February 11, more than 45,000 providers requested information or registration help from 62 RECs.

E-mail Inga.

Intelligent Healthcare Information Integration 2/24/11

HIStalk Practice Empowers Providers

Many of you who read HIStalk Practice are industry folks, people who work on the vendor side of healthcare information technology. That is greatly appreciated, but my recent trip to HIMSS11 has me feeling the need to make a pitch to the providers out there, my colleagues-in-arms, as to why they should read – and contribute commentary to – HIStalk Practice. The value of what the good folks from HIStalk provide us providers was driven home (with a sledgehammer!) by my experiences at this year’s HIMSS.

A brief background: A little over two years ago, the lovely Inga somehow found a blog I had only recently created where I was just, literally, playing around, writing for myself. I had not told anybody about it and had no expectations that anyone would ever read my ramblings. She asked if I would consider writing for HIStalk’s recently-started offshoot Web site, HIStalk Practice, which was created to try to reach providers such as myself more than the vendor world that HIStalk.com mainly addresses.

Jump forward to 2011 and they are still posting my pseudo-regular blatherings. The HIStalk sites are about “IT News and Opinion.” I write mostly on the “Opinion” side with the occasional “News” item wafting in. The inscrutable Mr. H, fashionista Inga, and the new CMIO-type Dr. Jayne handle the HIT news stuff better than perhaps anybody in the business. They keep it easy to read, entertaining, almost completely all-encompassing, and do so with awe-inspiring regularity.

As a “grunt in the trenches opinionator,” I sort of look at myself as more of a cheerleader, a voice on the sidelines of this gigundo HIT world who wants to see the perspective of us little guys kept in mind as the HIT snowball rolls all of us providers toward digitization. I firmly believe that what works in the big centers doesn’t play the same for us grunts.

I occasionally gripe or bitch about some plan or some company when I see something I think is wrong, but I don’t really like bitching, especially if it isn’t followed up with constructive suggestions for improvements. I think I add more value providing support for things that look smart from my little corner of the healthcare world. I try to look at all things HIT with an eye for what I and other providers like me might find useful, of value, helpful.

I’m not paid as a writer for the HIStalk pages. I’ve thought about it a lot, and we’ve discussed a few options along those lines, but the freedom to say what I want, to be beholdin’ to no one, has a very powerful draw for me. I’ve decided to forego further considerations of that because of the following, which is also why I hope more providers will join in this choir:

At HIMSS11, Mr. H, Inga, and Dr. Jayne held a “thank you” luncheon for their sponsors. As they are anonymous, Ed Marx and I agreed to be their stand-in body doubles to do things they couldn’t do without blowing their covers. The event was attended by big wigs from across the HIT vendor world spectrum. It was an amazing turnout.

Ed kicked off the luncheon with a few remarks, a great little story of the relevance and power of HIT in enabling improved care for someone near and dear to him. But, when he first started, he introduced himself and me and we got an unexpected, and larger than I would have ever imagined, round of applause from all these big wig, HIT muckety mucks.

As surprising as that was, what was even more surprising was the number of folks who approached me, both there and on the conference and exhibition floors, who took the time to stop and say “Hello,” to mention that they enjoyed reading my stuff on HIStalk/HIStalk Practice, and to ask my take on this or that HIT-related issue.

Remember, I’m truly a “grunt in the trenches” pediatrician for Nowhere, Ohio, who was just lucky enough to be “discovered” by Inga. I know there are lots of my colleagues out there who have great opinions and insights who could be having their views seen by the vendor folks who are building out this new HIT world. If they’re paying heed to my banter, how much more powerful could it be if more “grunts” provided their takes on how this HIT stuff impacts their worlds?

Thus, my plea: if you’re a provider, or if you know of a provider you could direct this way, I stronger want to encourage any and all to add your provider voices to these now infamous pages. If they’re hearing me, just think how much more of an impact we could have if they were hearing more of “us!” (Just look at what the grunts did in Egypt.)

From the trenches…

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader

PS – I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the real “wow” at the HIStalk Sponsors’ Lunch came when, for the first time ever, Mr. H, Inga, and Dr. Jayne showed up, live and in-person, though in disguise, and addressed the attendees. It was so fun!!!

Dr. Gregg Alexander, a grunt in the trenches pediatrician, directs the “Pediatric Office of the Future” exhibit for the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a member of the Professional Advisory Council for ModernMedicine.com. More of his blather…er, writings…can be found at his blog, practice web site or directly from doc@madisonpediatric.com.

News 2/17/11

Memorial Medical Center (WI) selects NextGen EHR for its ambulatory care clinic, as well as Inpatient Clinicals and Financials for the hospital.

Greenway client Children’s Clinic of Muskogee (OK) is the first pediatric practice in the country to qualify for Meaningful Use funds. The clinic’s four providers are set to receive an $85,000 check,  which will be handed out at the HIMSS conference next week.

AAFP announces AAFP Physicians Direct, a new $15 a month service that supports secure electronic communication between physicians. Participating physicians will be able to connect to Surescripts to share data through the AAFP Physician Direct web portal or through certain EMRs. Initially Amazing Charts, e-MDs, and SOAPware are the EMRs that will leverage the Surescripts network to provide clinical interoperability between providers.

CMS says it will reprocess many physician claims filed under the 2010 Medicare physician fee schedule. Apparently some fees were affected by the retroactive dates included in certain provisions of last year’s health reform law. Though the law was signed in March, some of the fee changes were retroactive to January 2010.

Vitality and AT&T win the 2011 Global Mobile award for the AT&T-connected Vitality GlowCaps in the Best Embedded Mobile Product/Device (non-handset) category.  The Glowcaps fit on a standard prescription bottle and use light, sound, text, and phone reminders to encourage patients to take their medicine at the proper time.

Speaking of GlowCaps, Dr. Joseph Kvedar, director of the Center for Connected Health, says he uses one for his cholesterol lowering medication.  The Center for Health works to identify technology that can help change patient behavior and improve health outcomes.

Did you have a chance to complete our reader survey? We only do it once a year and it helps us make HIStalk Practice more valuable to readers. Thanks for taking a moment to give us your input. Thanks!

If you read HIStalk, then you already know that I am heading to Orlando for HIMSS this weekend. I’m not sure what we will be posting on HIStalk Practice next week, but perhaps I will highlight a few items more of interest to those in the ambulatory world.  Last year I spent some time walking the exhibit floor with a doctor friend and plan to do so again this year. It’s interesting to hear a physician’s take on things, as well as experience the doctor-specific pitch from vendors.  If you have any suggestions, let me know.

3M Health Information Systems and Nuance announce a strategic partnership to deliver ICD-10-ready clinical documentation and coding solutions, starting with Computer-Assisted Physician Documentation, which combines Nuance’s speech recognition technology with 3M’s Clinical Documentation Improvement content. CAPD allows physicians to dictate encounters in their own words while prompting them for any additional information needed for proper ICD-9 and ICD-10 coding, enabling clinical documentation improvement a the point of dictation. It was designed to accelerate the implementation of ICD-10 and works . Mr. H chatted with Nuance’s Janet Dillione and 3M’s Jon Lindekugel about the partnership here.

Emdeon forms a strategic alliance with LabCorp to deliver a co-branded EHR Lite solution for physicians. The Emdeon-LabCorp EHR LITE program includes the Web-based Emdeon Clinician, which is integrated within the Emdeon Office Suite. The Office Suite package includes a variety of RCM and practice management tools, and integration with LabCorp testing ordering and results. I’ll be checking it out at HIMSS.

E-mail Inga.

News 2/15/11

University Hospitals (OH) will deploy Allscripts EHR to all its 1,400 employed physicians and provide an exclusive endorsement of Allscripts EHR for its independent affiliated physicians. University Hospitals will also expand its deployment of the Sunrise Enterprise suite to its new Ahuja Medical Center.

E-prescribing company Dr.First acquires AdherenceRx, a provider of behavioral health coaching and medication adherence solutions.  AdherenceRx CEO Chris Cresswell will lead Dr.First’s new Patient Innovation division.

Riverside Healthcare (IL) will migrate its employed physicians to eClinicalWorks using a SaaS model. Providers will have access to eCW’s EHR and PM, as well as Electronic Health eXchange, Enterprise Business Optimizer, Patient Portal, eClinicalMobile, and eClinicalMessenger.

EDI provider Encoda promotes company co-founder William Cox to president and CEO. Former president Robert Lee will remain as an advisor and major shareholder.

ChartLogic introduces a new voice recognition clinical documentation module called Stella, which I am sure would please Stanley Kowalski. Stella works with ChartLogic EHR or can be purchased as a separate module to work with other EHR systems.  ChartLogic also just added the nine-physician Advanced Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine (TX) as a client.

Beth Israel Deaconess Physician Organization plans to implement the Ingenix Impact Suite to provide data analytics and reporting capabilities for its 1,800 physician network members. The tools will help doctors measure clinical performance to reduce variations in care and provide insight on underlying health trends.

A Massachusetts state representative proposes legislation that would require providers to use EMRs.  I can’t imagine such legislation would pass. Then again, Massachusetts has been ahead of the rest of the nation enacting other healthcare legislation, so who knows.

Telehealth technology can significantly reduce costs associated with pediatric care, according to a DoD stody. Findings from the DoD’s Pacific Asynchronous Telehealth program indicate that 60% of the time physicians are able to resolved primary problems through a telehealth consult. Telehealth consults also kept patients from transferring to larger facilities 43% of the time.

The Retina Care Center (MD) picks SRS EHR for its four physician, five location practice.

Catholic Health Partners implements Phytel’s Proactive Patient Outreach to help its physicians improve prevention and chronic care management. The program creates an electronic registry of patients requiring preventative and chronic care based on data from CHP’s Epic EMR and PM systems, as well as national evidence-based protocols.

One less bit of paperwork for physicians: CMS will rescind a rule requiring a physician’s signature on all medical lab requisitions for Medicare patients. Opponents of the rule, which was to go into effect April 1st, argued that proliferation of EMRs in coming years has the “potential to transform the process and documentation of orders and requisitions, offering CMS access to standardized documentation of the physician’s orders.”  In a letter to CMS from 89 Congressman also noted that currently challenges exist in the electronic ordering of lab tests, especially since some physician systems don’t interface with lab computer systems.

From Kareo’s latest newsletter:  Maximizing the Value of Your Billing Office and Medical Billing Software, How to Hire – and Keep – the Best Biller,  and, Understanding the RVU in Practice Management.

Dr. Manoj Jain, a Memphis infectious disease specialist, writes a compelling article about hospitals taking over private practices. He notes that healthcare is becoming increasing complex as providers try to keep up with constantly changing regulations and implement EMRs. But a more significant reason for practices to join hospitals hospitals: hospitals are much paid more than practices for such things as MRIs and EKGs.  Hospitals don’t necessarily want to manage independent-minded physicians any more than physicians want administrative oversight, but hospitals and physicians are aligning nonetheless. His conclusion: “One of the best ways to change health care is to change the way one pays for health care.”

E-mail Inga.