Going to MGMA 2010? Visit Our HIStalk and HIStalk Practice Sponsors

Note: you can download a handy PDF of this page to take along to New Orleans.

Advanced MD Software
Booth 1628
10876 South River Front Parkway
Suite 400
South Jordan, UT 84095
Phone:801.984.9500 
www.advancedmd.com

Announces a new, fully integrated EHR + PM/RCM solution. Physicians gain the benefits of strong EHR with integrated ePrescribing and pre-built, customizable templates. Office managers gain access to a strong claims management system, payer-rules engine, and simple denial tracking. Designed to support the needs of medical practices and billing services.

Allscripts
Booth 1417
222 Merchandise Mart
Suite 2024
Chicago, IL 60654-1034
Phone:919.329.1070
www.allscripts.com

Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) provides innovative solutions that empower all stakeholders across the healthcare continuum to deliver world class outcomes. The company’s clinical, financial, connectivity, and information solutions for hospitals, physicians, and post-acute organizations are the essential technologies that enable a connected healthcare community.

Culbert Healthcare Solutions Inc
Booth 142
800 West Cummings Park
Suite 6000
Woburn, MA 01801
Phone:781.935.1002 ext. 13
www.culberthealth.com

Culbert Healthcare Solutions is a professional services firm serving healthcare organizations. We specialize in helping group practices leverage clinical and practice management technologies to improve patient care and financial performance by implementing best practices.

eClinicalWorks LLC
Booth 1536
112 Turnpike Road
Suite 200
Westborough, MA 01581
Phone:508.836.2700
Fax:508.836.4466
www.eclinicalworks.com

eClinicalWorks provides ambulatory clinical solutions, including EMR/PM software, patient portals, and community health records applications. With 40,000+ providers and 120,000+ medical professionals across all 50 states using its solutions, customers include small, medium, and large physician practices, outpatient departments of hospitals, health centers, departments of health, and convenient care clinics.

e-MDs
Booth 1207 
9900 Spectrum Drive
Austin, TX 78717
Phone:8888.344.9836 
www.e-mds.com

e-MDs is a leading developer of healthcare software solutions, founded in 1996, and actively participates in national health information technology and interoperability efforts. e-MDs Solution Series is the standard for affordable, integrated EHR/PM solutions, including clinical, financial, and document management modules that automate medical practice processes and chart management.

Greenway Medical Technologies
Booth 517
121 Greenway Boulevard
Carrollton, GA 30117
Phone:770.836.3100 
www.greenwaymedical.com

Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc. provides a complete physician’s infrastructure of clinical, financial, and administrative technologies through its integrated, single-database EHR, practice management, and interoperability solution PrimeSuite. Greenway’s certified and KLAS-award winning solutions serve more than 23,000 healthcare practitioners nationwide in 30 specialties and subspecialties.

iMDsoft
Booth 1504 
300 First Avenue
Needham, MA 02494
Phone:781.449.5567
www.imd-soft.com

The iMDsoft MetaVision Suite of clinical information systems features fully-integrated tools for data collection, presentation, order management, and decision support across the critical care and preoperative continuum.

Ingenix
Booth 724 
12125 Technology Drive
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
Phone:888.345.8745
www.ingenix.com

Ingenix CareTracker is 2011 CCHIT-certified EHR/PM solution that is guaranteed to help physicians meet meaningful use requirements. It’s built with cloud computing technology so you get instant updates, reliable accessibility, complete global content, and immediate connections to labs, pharmacies, and hospitals — all for a lower total cost of ownership.

McKesson
Booth 618
5995 Windward Parkway
Alpharetta, GA 30005
Phone: 404.338.3807
Fax: 404.338.5121
www.mckesson.com

McKesson delivers solutions to physician practices of all sizes and specialties, providing physicians with more products, services, and resources than any other healthcare company — including practice management systems and EHR, billing and accounts receivable management and connectivity services, medical supplies and equipment, and pharmaceuticals.

MED3OOO
Booth 844
680 Andersen Drive
Foster Plaza 10
Pittsburgh, PA 15220
Phone:412.937.8887
Fax:412.937.9221
www.MED3OOO.com

MED3OOO, experts in healthcare management and information technology, advances performance of group medical practices, clinics, and hospital-employed physicians with RCM and ASP PM/EHR systems. Stop by our booth for a demonstration of our InteGreat EHR the intuitive browser-based solution. Uncover your practice potential with MED3OOO’s team of experts.

MedAptus
Booth 702
176 Federal Street
4th Floor
Boston, MA 02110
Phone:617.896.4000
Fax:617.482.1110
www.medaptus.com

With the most powerful, yet easy-to-use, Intelligent Charge Capture technologies available, MedAptus enjoys enterprise-wide adoption at many prestigious, academic healthcare organizations. Our full-scale Professional and Facility offerings increase revenue, re-engineer archaic processes, enhance EMR investments, and save busy providers time.

Medicity
Booth 1644
56 East Broadway #600 
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Phone:801.322.4444 
www.medicity.com

Medicity’s care collaboration solutions work the way you do. We connect you to colleagues, service providers, hospitals, and patients on your terms — without disrupting your workflow. Coordinate care around a 360° view of your patients’ health through the largest network of connected providers in the nation. Are you iN?

Navicure Inc.
Booth 1046 
2055 Sugarloaf Circle, Suite 600 
Duluth, GA 30097
Phone:770.342.0200
www.navicure.com

Navicure is an Internet-based medical claims clearinghouse that helps physician practices increase profitability through claims reimbursement and staff productivity. Our solutions automate account receivables processes, including patient eligibility verification; primary and secondary claims reimbursement; rejected and denied claims management; electronic remittance and posting; claims and remittance reporting and analysis; and patient statement processing.

NextGen Healthcare
Booth 1136
795 Horsham Road
Horsham, PA 19644
Phone:215.795.1050
www.nextgen.com

NextGen Healthcare is a leading provider of integrated electronic health record and practice management systems, connectivity solutions, and billing services designed to serve the needs of ambulatory practices and hospitals of all sizes and specialty areas. Our award-winning, certified solutions help improve care quality and increase operational efficiencies.

Nuance
Booth 535
One Wayside Rd
Burlington, MA 01803
Phone:781.565.5000
www.nuance.com/healthcare

Nuance’s Dragon Medical is the most widely used speech recognition system in medicine today. Dragon Medical reduces transcription expense, delivers results rapidly, and heightens clinician satisfaction by making EHR systems easy to use, which accelerates the adoption of clinical information systems so provider organizations maximize the return from IT investments.

PatientKeeper
Booth 541
275 Washington Street
2nd Floor
Newton, MA 02458
Phone:617.987.0300
www.patientkeeper.com

PatientKeeper works with hospitals and physicians to deliver a single place to work. Through integration and workflow optimization, PatientKeeper has the highest physician adoption rates in the industry. PatientKeeper’s solutions ensure that HITECH meaningful use criteria are met. PatientKeeper’s return on investment is demonstrable and proven across our client base.

RelayHealth
Booth 128
1145 Sanctuary Parkway
Suite 200
Alpharetta, GA 30004
Phone:510.637.7722
www.relayhealth.com

With market-leading clinical, financial, and patient connectivity solutions, RelayHealth provides the access and tools to improve patient care, enhance financial management, and interact with patients and other healthcare providers. Put these advantages to work for you and experience the benefits of Health Connections Brought to Life.

Sage
Booth 536
4301 West Boy Scout Blvd., Suite 800 
Tampa, FL 33607 
Phone:877.932.6301
www.sagehealth.com

Sage provides physician practice management and electronic health records software and services for small to medium-sized practices as well as enterprise customers. We combine business management tools with technology and information solutions that transform both the clinical and financial aspects of healthcare delivery.

SRSsoft
Booth 1101
95 Chestnut Ridge Road
Montvale, NJ 07645
Phone:201.802.1300
Fax:201.802.1301
www.srssoft.com

For over a decade, SRS has been the leading provider of productivity-enhancing EMR technology. The powerful SRS Hybrid EMR delivers speed, enhanced revenue, and client satisfaction. Valued by high-performance physicians, it is particularly well suited to the needs of specialists. Its successful adoption rate is unparalleled in the industry.

ZirMed Inc. 
Booth 838 
888 West Market Street 
Louisville, KY 40202
Phone:877.494.7633
www.zirmed.com

ZirMed is a nationally recognized leader in delivering revenue cycle management solutions to healthcare providers. Through the integration of its proven healthcare EDI solutions with powerful healthcare analytics and smart financial services, ZirMed enables healthcare providers to leverage the power of technology to cure administrative burdens and improve cash flow.

News 10/21/10

A reader forwarded findings from a recent Ovum report entitled Selecting an Ambulatory EHR Vendor in the Healthcare Market. The three vendors on Ovum’s short list were eClinicalWorks, GE Healthcare, and Cerner. Ovum argues that these vendors have established strong brand names in the ambulatory market and have demonstrated market-leading positions. I would definitely agree that eCW is a leader in the ambulatory market. GE was at one time. And, I’ve never thought of Cerner as a leader in this space, especially when you exclude hospital-owned practices. Ovum goes on to say that Cerner is the most versatile and multi-faceted of all the vendors they reviewed (which included the likes of Allscripts, NextGen, Sage, athenahealth, and Amazing Charts). Anyone besides me surprised? I have to admit I’ve never seen the Cerner ambulatory EHR, so I’ll take a peek at it at MGMA and report back.

Speaking of MGMA, take a moment to peruse our latest Vendor Exec question where we asked several industry leaders what the hot topics will be for attendees and what their company will be highlighting.

The 250-provider Greater Florida Anesthesiologists chooses McKesson’s Revenue Management Solutions for its medical billing and PM operations.

MGMA has signed deals with a couple of vendors on behalf of its members. It partners with MedAssets for group purchasing services. MGMA also selects Outcome Sciences to provide PQRI registry reporting at preferred rates.

The New Jersey HIT Extension Center picks ITelagen to provide technical assistance for physicians implementing EHRs and working to earn Meaningful Use funds. In checking the NJ-HITEC Website, I didn’t see mention of any other selected vendors (technical or EHR), but perhaps additional announcements are imminent.

Meanwhile, the Colorado REC says it has signed up its 800th provider, signifying it is more than one-third of its way to achieving its goal of 2,295 primary care providers. CO-REC reached the milestone in a mere three months. Great sales effort, but of course CO-REC now faces the more challenging task of helping these providers implement EHRs and qualify for Meaningful Use reimbursements.

Deloite releases its 2010 Technology Fast 500 rankings, which scores companies based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2005 to 2009. I noticed a few HIT companies, including Medical Present Value (276), Navicure (289), Nuance (297), MEDSEEK (343), SRSsoft (362), and GetWell Networks (386).

Rebound Orthopedics (WA) and Kansas Joint and Spine Institute deploy services from Ancillary Care Solutions to improve clinical workflows and financial returns and assess compliance.

Aprima Medical Software announces new Financial Services offerings that include payment deferral programs, zero down payments, hardware integration, and flexible payment terms. Aprima president Michael Nissenbaum says the service should help doctors affected by tight credit markets.

OB/GYN Women Specialists of Georgia contracts with Waiting Room Solutions for its Web-based EHR/PM solution.

An HHS privacy and security panel recommends that physicians provide patients a short, easy to understand summary of the practice’s privacy practices, including how patient information may be used. Physicians should also discuss face-to-face with patients the way information may be exchanged with third parties, such as HIEs or an integrated delivery network. Great recommendations, but I don’t see too many physicians taking the time for the latter.

Computers trump dermatologists when it comes to finding small, pigmented melanomas, based on the results of a vendor-sponsored trial. The study found that an automated, computerized imaging and diagnostic system spotted melanomas 98% of the time, compared to 78%  of the time for dermatologists.

Skyscape introduces a mobile version of the Johns Hopkins POC-IT Diabetes guide for healthcare providers.

Seventeen percent of cell phone users have looked up health or medical information on their phones and 9% have software apps on their phone to manage their health. I thought there were more of us.

E-mail Inga.

HIT Vendor Executives on MGMA 2010

We asked several HIT vendor executives the following question:

At the MGMA 10 Annual Conference, what will be the hot topics for attendees and what will your company be highlighting?

Jim Elliot, Vice President of Marketing, AdvancedMD

The challenge in today’s healthcare environment is to grow revenue and reduce costs while remaining compliant with the myriad of shifting regulations, such as Meaningful Use, 5010, and ICD-10. To keep pace with this change, you need an application that can evolve without causing downtime and hassle at the practice level.

AdvancedMD will be demonstrating their medical practice optimization solution — everything the private practice needs to run a profitable practice. We integrate the clinical with sophisticated billing and practice management in one easy to use solution with a monthly subscription fee. Stop by the AdvancedMD booth for a quick demo. Play the BIG wall-sized jigsaw puzzle and enter to win an iPad.

Robert Culbert, President, Culbert Healthcare Solutions

Three topics which our clients are most frequently looking for guidance include physician alignment, revenue cycle, and use of technology to both achieve Meaningful Use and also to support new reimbursement systems such as Accountable Care Organizations and Medical Home.

Culbert is unique in that we provide a strong combination of practice management and IT services which enables our consultants to take a holistic approach towards these areas. At the 2010 MGMA National Conference, we look forward to sharing best practices and lessons learned with forward thinking medical group leaders to help their practice become top performers.

Tee Green, President and CEO, Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc

It’s been challenging for this industry to look beyond Meaningful Use, and no doubt it will have precedent at MGMA. I also hope that a continued focus on interoperability and our industry’s role in constructing a smarter, more sustainable healthcare system will also be at the forefront.

For Greenway, now that our ONC-ATCB Complete EHR Certification is in place and we’ve scheduled training sessions for our customers, we will be launching a range of new functionalities enabling practices to advance their efficiencies with breakthrough solutions in speech understanding through PrimeSPEECH, integrated digital imaging capabilities through PrimeIMAGE, and automated patient allergy testing and serums, all benefiting primary care and specialty practices. In regards to the ARRA incentives, Greenway will also be highlighting our Meaningful Use Dashboard, which will allow PrimeSUITE customers to track “allowables,” reporting compliance and incentives capture on a daily basis.

Kipp Lassetter, MD, CEO, Medicity

Hot topics at MGMA will be maximizing a practice’s investment in an EHR and ensuring that the practice has all the technology it needs to meet Meaningful Use requirements.

Medicity will be focusing on the connectivity aspects of these requirements since an EHR cannot be completely effective if it does not exchange information electronically with hospitals, allied care providers and other stakeholders. Medicity will demonstrate how physician-practice connectivity can be achieved — regardless of the technology currently in place at a practice — not only to achieve meaningful use but also to provide better care and increased efficiencies through collaboration.

Scott Decker, President, NextGen Healthcare

This year we’ll be talking about mastering the art of practice management — how to develop a clear vision of where you’re headed and choose the right tools to get you there. Meaningful Use will of course be top of mind, but we anticipate attendees will also look beyond stimulus incentives for our advice on becoming a patient-centered medical home and/or accountable care organization.

We’ll also introduce them to tools like the NextGen Health Quality Measures Reporting Module to support pay-for-performance programs and NextGen Dashboard for viewing clinical, financial, and operational data. Our goal is to help MGMA attendees walk away with new insight on how to provide the very best patient care while getting a solid return on their investment.

David Henriksen, Senior Vice President/General Manager, McKesson’s Physician Practice Solutions

Meaningful Use will most likely dominate the conversation and we look forward to speaking with our customers at MGMA about how our solutions will help bring vitality to their practice.

For Practice Partner, we will highlight how improved charge capture and data capture can help physicians reach Meaningful Use standards while keeping their financial needs top of mind.  Beyond Meaningful Use, we are helping our customers truly improve care quality by focusing on initiatives like Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) and PPR Net, a practice-based research network enabling a new level of managed quality care.

Paul Brient, CEO, PatientKeeper Inc.

Two hot technology-related issues that will be top of mind at MGMA are health information exchange and mobile healthcare applications for physicians. Increasingly, our customers want to connect patient information from inpatient and outpatient settings across their respective healthcare communities. We also see a high demand for healthcare applications across the major mobile devices including iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Mobile.

At MGMA, PatientKeeper will highlight solutions that address these issues while providing physicians with workflow applications like electronic charge capture and mobile clinical results that make it easier for physicians to manage their day.

Sharon Howard, Vice President, Marketing, RelayHealth

At the MGMA 10 Annual Conference, RelayHealth will be introducing RelayAnalytics Financial Diagnostics, including a dashboard that gives physicians’ staff instant visibility into claims and remittance data. Also available for demonstration are RelayHealth clinical solutions, including health information exchange products that help physicians exchange information securely with patients, colleagues, hospitals, labs, and more.

We’ll also showcase claims management solutions, online business office and patient billing solutions, and tools that help practices manage patient self-pay balances by connecting with consumer-directed healthcare funds.

Betty Otter-Nickerson, President, Sage Healthcare Division

Healthcare hot topics continue to be reform, Meaningful Use, and how software solutions are impacting the industry. At MGMA, Sage plans to lead in these conversations and work with new and potential clients to affirm that our Sage Intergy Meaningful Use Edition meets their practice’s needs for reform, interoperability, and reporting.

We’ll also be focused on launching our new philanthropic program, Pink by Sage, designed to improve patient’s care quality. This is our effort to contribute financially to life-changing causes and to re-dedicate ourselves to humanizing technology as we continue to develop patient centric solutions. We’ll highlight this new effort, along with our recently announced Customer Appreciation Program, and Sage Intergy’s HIE interoperable capabilities.

Evan Steele, CEO, SRSsoft

Attendees will be talking about the business of medicine and what practices can do to survive the conflicting downward pressure on revenue and upward pressure on expenses. With no control over reimbursement rates, physicians and practice managers are searching desperately for ways to manage the bottom line.

SRS continues to focus on physician productivity, recently expanding its product suite. SRS now offers a productivity-enhancing practice management system and PACS, both of which are integrated with the Hybrid EMR through the Unified Desktop. This frees physicians to see more patients, heightens patient care, and slashes overhead, increasing the practices’ control over income.

News 10/19/10

SRS lands a big contract with the 242-provider Illinois Bone & Joint Institute (IBJI). IBJI selected the SRS Hybrid EMR following a 30-day, multi-site pilot installation.

West Virginia launches an e-prescribing initiative that will allow Medicaid providers to electronically forward Medicaid and commercial prescriptions to pharmacies. The WVeScript service is offered free of charge and uses  the Surescripts e-prescribing network.

When adverse drug event reporting tools are incorporated into an EHR, physicians are more likely to participate in the reporting process. These findings are based on a pilot study with 26 practicing physicians testing an EHR-based tool that automates adverse drug reporting to the FDA.

The AMA adds Quest Diagnostics Care360 EHR as a Web-based EHR alternative on the AMA’s online platform.

Nice use of EMR: physicians at the University of Texas Medical Branch pull data from their EMR to examine blood lead levels in children. Data from 2006 to 2008 indicated that blood lead levels in 1-2 year old children were higher among children living on Galveston island than in other regions. In part driven by these findings, the UTMB worked with the city to reduce city-wide lead levels. More current data, collected during routine office visits, indicates blood lead levels have declined and are in line with state and national averages.

GE Healthcare says it has successfully linked its Centricity EMR with several non-GE inpatient systems, allowing for the sharing of clinical patient data.

American Medical News weighs the pros and cons of cloud computing for physician offices. Pluses: it’s usually less expensive, provides a virtually maintenance-free infrastructure, and is highly accessible from anywhere. Potential concerns include unreliable speed, less control over downtime, and uneasiness because data is stored off-site. A third of the industry is using some type of cloud-based application, so I’m thinking the clouds don’t need to be feared.

Look for some field reporting next week when I travel to MGMA in New Orleans. If you have any suggestions for sessions, exhibits, or quick shoe shopping, send me a note. Whether you are MGMA-bound or not, you’ll enjoy reading our Vendor Executives post this week, which features several industry execs and their predictions for the hot topics that attendees will be discussing (hint: Meaningful Use is just one of many.) Also this week: our annual HIStalk/HIStalk Practice MGMA exhibit guide, which highlights some of the cool things you can check out when stopping by our sponsors’ booths.

I love when vendors promote good causes, so of course I’m happy to mention Sage Healthcare’s support of Breast Cancer Awareness during MGMA. Sage will install a 6’ X 8’ Wall of Hope for attendees to share their personal stories battling breast cancer. For each story posted, Sage will make a donation to breast cancer research. I’ll be stopping by to lend my support (though thankfully I don’t have a personal story to share.)

Here is something to ponder: if physician finder/physician rating services cannot reliably remove information on deceased doctors, should the overall accuracy of the sites be questioned? The question was first posed by blogger Barbara Duck, who found several listings for one of her former and not-so-recently deceased physicians. The physician data manager for HealthGrades says they’d like more physician involvement to make sure data is correct, saying, “We’re trying to make sure that the physician is responsible for their Web presence.”  (Who knew there was Internet in the afterlife?)  Perhaps these sites need a big “Buyer Beware” stamp so patients won’t immediately assume that just because it’s on the Web, that a particular physician will take a specific insurance, has a current license, or even has a pulse.

E-mail Inga.

News 10/14/10

From: Thoroughbred “Re: New KLAS report. Evan Steele must carry some clout with KLAS. They just released a report that rates ambulatory EMRs by specialty.” Last week Evan submitted a Readers’ Write piece calling on KLAS and other analysts to provide ratings by specialty. Turns out that KLAS agrees with Evan, saying they’ve been working on this report for several months because they recognize that different specialties have different functional needs. SRS, by the way, scored quite well, taking top honors for cardiology, ophthalmology, and orthopedics. Greenway was the highest rated product for ENT and OB/Gyn. Praxis earned the top scores for family practice, Amazing Charts for family practice, and athenaclinicals for pediatrics. EpicCare Ambulatory was the highest rated product for multi-specialty groups. Providers can download the full report for free.

While the US continues its struggles with healthcare automation, our neighbors to the north are having issues of their own. Officials are concerned that fewer than 40% of Canada’s primary care doctors have access to EHRs, prompting the Canadian Medical Association to ask the government to allocate more money to the cause. Though the government has already spent millions trying to build an electronic health record system, CMA officials say most of the funds have got to systems and IT architecture, rather than to doctors’ offices, hospitals, labs, and pharmacies. The CMA is calling for an additional $423 million over five years in order to boost the number of doctors using EMRs.

Speaking of Canada, I’d love to connect with someone who is familiar with both the US and Canadian EMR markets. I’ve reached out to a couple of folks over the last year but no luck connecting with anyone so far. If you or someone you know is well-versed on this topic, drop me a note.

The Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) awards REC pre-qualified EHR status to Allscripts, NextGen partner Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, Inc., Ingenix,  NextGen, and Polaris Medical Management. In addition, RIQI is in final contract negotiations with: GE Healthcare, eClinicalWorks, and athenahealth. The REC also names 12 vendors pre-qualified technical service consultants.

Sage Healthcare’s SVP Tony Ryzinski authors this piece outlining 14 points for successful EHR implementations. The vendor-neutral tips emphasize putting the right leaders in place, minimizing distractions during the transition, and focusing on successes.

Sales reps take note: nearly half of physicians require or prefer an appointment with medical industry sales reps before meeting one-on-one, according to this SK&A survey. Twenty-three percent of doctors refuse to see reps at any time at any of their locations. When a practice is owned by a hospital or health system, physicians are less likely to allow access without an appointment.

Centice Corporation introduces the PINPOINT Rx system, designed to help physicians and pharmacists identify medications. The device captures the spectral signature of a drug and checks it against a known database.

The 200-provider Community Care Physicians implements mycareDOT patient portal, developed by RelayHealth.

North Texas Children’s Anesthesia commits to a three-year service agreement with billing service provider Zotec Partners.

Skyscape partners with the Massachusetts Medical Society to offer a mobile version of Journal Watch. Journal Watch provides summaries and commentaries on recently published medical information across 13 different specialties.

E-mail Inga.