Here ’ s What Won ’ t Happen in 2017 (And What Will)
By PAUL KECKLEY
In the political drama surrounding the new administration, healthcare is certain to take center stage as the 115th Congress convenes tomorrow and Donald Trump is sworn in as our 45th President and Chief Executive January 20. As it turns out, healthcare was a major issue in Campaign 2016, especially with Clinton-Sanders followers who wished expansion of coverage and a vocal minority of GOP voters who liked the promise of Repeal and Replace. Now it’s time to govern.
For the new Congress and administration, governing healthcare will play out against a testy backdrop: it will not be easy.
The Nation is...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 2, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Top EMR and HIPAA Blog Posts of 2016
At the end of each year, it’s fun to pull up the stats and see which blog posts were the most popular blog posts and pages on EMR and HIPAA. What’s shocking to me is how many older posts on EMR and HIPAA are still generating a ton of traffic. Here’s a look at the top 10 blog posts and a bit of commentary on each.
1. Healthcare IT and EHR Conferences and Events – This page has gotten 10 times more traffic than pretty much all of the other posts on this list. I’m biased, but it’s a great resource. It also illustrates to me that I should spend more time creating these types of deep reso...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 30, 2016 Category: Information Technology Authors: John Lynn Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare HealthCare IT Healthcare Scene Top EMR and HIPAA Posts Source Type: blogs
The Ear Game
If I could, I would spend all day cleaning ears. Seriously, There is almost nothing I do that makes patients happier. Not diagnosing a rare disease, not treating diabetes or heart failure. Of course, those patients are thankful too. But very little lights up a face more than the instantaneous relief and the rush of sound that comes when knocking loose a particularly egregious glob of cerumen.I figure I could set up four or five rooms in tandem. Each with a its own sink, syringe, and various plastic scooping tools. I would spend all day excavating. Sifting through the mud to expo...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - December 28, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
Tech-savvy docs need to be on the forefront of EHR reform
I remember the disdain some of the EHR trainers had for their trainees back when our hospital system “went live” several years ago. Of course, this disdain was tempered by their knowledge that if docs weren’t so computer illiterate, or the user interfaces of the EHR systems weren’t so awful, or if the EHR software wasn’t so bug-ridden, their jobs wouldn’t exist.
So they soldiered bravely on, undaunted by grumpy old docs who now had to type their notes despite never learning how to touch type, who had to reconcile medication lists a mile long including meds like cinnanom that they really could care less that the...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 27, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/david-mann" rel="tag" > David Mann, MD < /a > Tags: Tech Health IT Source Type: blogs
The Data Was Suffering
The notion began early in computer science class during Jason's freshman year. The professor had noticed a certain elegance and zeal in his work and suggested medicine. That was in the days of the giants when clinicians were tied to such clunky programs as Meaningful Use and PQRS. In this antiquated milieu, Jason cut his teeth on basic healthcare architecture.In those prehistoric years, there still remained a bias toward eye contact and empathic expression. Thankfully, over time, the technocrats pushed the boundaries. Jason couldn't be happier. His hands hovered over the keyboard and his eyes ...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - December 19, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
Legislated Out
I have a breathtakingly difficult confession to make. A confession, that on its face, seems rather innocuous, but in many ways shakes the foundations of who I always thought I was. How I identify myself.I no longer love being a physician.There, I said it. I winced even as I strung the words together to write the sentence. You see, to admit this is almost inconceivable. So much of who I was and who I have become is enmeshed in this intricate quilt of a profession. I view most every aspect of my life through this lens.How could I not? Wanting to be a doctor is the first cognition I can recall fr...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - December 18, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
Making the Physician-Patient Relationship Great Again
BY ADRIAN GROPPER, MD
21st Century Cures is now law. Aside from its touted research and mental health provisions, it’s the most significant health information technology regulation since HITECH, now 8 years ago. A decent summary of the health IT provisions of the bill by John Halamka concludes with “That is just not realistic.” He’s almost certainly right to the extent your perspective is the hospital-centered mega-EHR model. You can’t get there from here.
Halamka and others who think that consolidated institutions will drive interoperability are in denial of the gap between financial integration and clinical int...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 16, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Tech Adrian Gropper Trump administration Source Type: blogs
The HIT Emperor Has Never Had Any Clothes
By HAYWARD ZWERLING, MD
Over the last several months, I have worked to make the following the official policy of the Massachusetts Medical Society:
That the MMS will advocate to our State and Federal Representatives to end all legal constraints and financial inducements arising from the use or non-use of Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Certified EHR Technology.
That the MMS will encourage our Massachusetts Federal Legislators to introduce legislation to end the ONC’s EHR certification program, and will ask the President of the United States to immediately request that such legislation be introduced.
While the MM...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 12, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Hayward Zwerling Meaningful Use Source Type: blogs
Part Three: The Broader Impact of MACRA
Conclusion
This MACRA final rule is the start of a long journey in Medicare fee-for service payment reform, brought about by rare bipartisan Congressional compromise legislation based on the common understanding that for Medicare to achieve long-term sustainability, volume-based incentives need to be replaced with rewards for quality and patient-centered care. To come in future years are more rigorous targets, including scoring for cost performance with CMS providing clinical feedback to clinicians on their reported performance. We especially note the importance of MACRA for manufacturers, as APMs and MIPS will increasing...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 11, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
A Different Kind of Meaningful Use Penalty
By HANS DUEVEFELT, MD
Our clinic is worried about qualifying for this year’s Meaningful Use incentive payments. We have this hastily purchased EMR that was supposed to make life easier and quality better for all of us. The EMR vendor got paid a long time ago but we are still dealing with the administrative burdens imposed by our new system.
By attesting that we can use this thing reasonably properly, we can receive some Government incentive monies, which even under the best of circumstances don’t even begin to make up for all the extra expenses and productivity losses we have incurred through going digital.
What we are...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 8, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Not A Great Deal Seems To Have Happened In the Last Few Years. Really Pretty Hopeless.
For some reason Google found this for me today – and note the article date.Dr Mukesh Haikerwal Resigns from NEHTA By Petrina Smith
Friday, 16 August, 2013 Dr Mukesh Haikerwal has resigned from the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA).Dr Haikerwal tendered his resignation from NEHTA on Tuesday 13, August, effective Thursday 22 August 2013. He had been National Clinical Lead since 2007.….. “NEHTA’s focus has moved from designing eHealth systems to them now being tweaked to encompass utility, usability, usefulness and meaningful use in the products to be rolled out into the healthcare sector. There ha...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - December 7, 2016 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
21st Century Cures and the Road Ahead
I ’ve been writing fewer posts recently because the trajectory forward for healthcare and healthcare IT seems to be evolving very rapidly. In just the past week, we ’ve had*TheAmerican Hospital Association letter suggesting that 21,000 pages of regulations be rolled back including Meaningful Use Stage Three concepts and quality measurement in many care settings.*The passage of the21st Century Cures bill and its many IT related mandates*The nomination ofTom Price for HHS Secretary andSeema Verma for CMS administratorAs I ’ve written about previously, I believe that value-based purchasing and the move ...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - December 7, 2016 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Part Two: MACRA More MIPS, and APMs
In part two of our MACRA analysis, we continue our look at MIPS and evaluate the APM pathway of MACRA’s new quality payment program.
Small Practice Considerations
Exemption
Key finalized policies include a small practice-friendly low volume threshold. In 2017, the threshold has been set at “less than or equal to $30,000 in Medicare Part B allowed charges or less than or equal to 100 Medicare patients.” CMS says this new threshold represents 32.5 percent of Medicare clinicians but only 5 percent Medicare Part B spending.
CMS says that the new flexibilities from the final rule lessen the impact on smal...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 4, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Part One: MACRA Overview and MIPS
In its final MACRA rule, CMS significantly revamped the physician pay rule to make it easy for physicians to avoid penalties and to earn bonuses, and the agency is leaving the final rule open for comment to make it easier to revise. Among the changes, physicians need only report on one quality measure in each of two categories next year to avoid penalties, a third of practices are exempted from the program entirely, and there is a new alternative pay model option aimed at making it easier for small practices to qualify for the 5 percent bonus that comes with being counted as an alternative pay model.
MACRA: An Overview
T...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 27, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
