"One rare and exceptional deed is worth far more than a thousand commonplace ones." - St. Ignatius of Loy...
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing comprehensive and economical services
The healthcare sector is dynamic with constantly changing needs, new developments, new inventions and new discoveries. It is also a sector that has to work under several constraints and strict code of ethics. The constant endeavor of most healthcare facilities is to maintain high standards of service, trying to keep the bottom-line in the black, all this while performing under a strict code of ethics.The process of healthcare depends on various inputs to be able to deliver quality healthcare. One of the vital ingredients leading to the successful provision of quality healthcare is information from patient records. Medical transcription is the process of creating patient records from the audio records of the healthcare professional’s narration of his/her encounter with the patient. Accurate...
More Hospital CEOs Join the Millionaire's Club, This Time in Baltimore
As we predicted, more stringent requirements by the US Internal Revenue Service for financial reporting by not-for-profit organizations, including hospitals and hospital systems, have produced an enlarging parade of revelations of obese pay packages for hospital leaders. The latest report came out courtesy the Baltimore Sun:Baltimore-area hospital CEOs and presidents boast seven-figure salaries, club and gym memberships, and paid financial planning and tax services as part of compensation packages from their nonprofit employers.According to a survey of Baltimore-area hospitals, the highest-ranking executives were often the recipients of financial payouts and perquisites that many private-sector companies have abandoned in the face of intense public debate about excessive CEO pay. The...
The August HIT Standards Committee Meeting
The agenda began with comments from Jon Perlin and me reflecting on the busy Summer, reacting to the final rules, and planning for the future of policies and technologies to support interoperability. I summarized my experience with questions and feedback on the Standards Final Rule. Thus far, questions about consistency of content, vocabulary, and standards named in quality measures have been clarified without requiring changes in the rule.Sam Karp and Aneesh Chopra summarized the Enrollment Workgroup deliverables that satisfy the requirements of Section 1561 of Affordable Care Act. The recommend use of the NIEM framework to support standards and processes going forward. They recommend the creation of web services on top of existing legacy systems as well as create a reference implementation...
Monday, August 30, 2010
"Trouble Coming Every Day" as Discussed by our Fellow Health Care Skeptics
With apologies to the late Frank Zappa... even though we are going through the dog days of summer, the parade of health care troubles in the news is never ending, so I thought I would recap some of the more interesting issues discussed by some of my fellow health care skeptic bloggers.We have discussed the ongoing decline of primary care. On DB's Medical Rants, Dr Robert Centor takes on the topic: "The system has, without consciously meaning to, held primary care in contempt." The result is a "quiet rebellion: of primary doctors.We have discussed whether the currently fashionable idea of "accountable care organizations" (ACOs) might turn out to be a cover for health care oligopolies. See what Paul Levy, CEO of the Beth Israel/ Deaconess Medical Center said about them in his blog, Running...
Health IT Personnel - Aliens in Healthcare?
--------------------------------Sept. 1Important note - it appears the survey results referenced below were contaminated by activists who could not allow this survey to occur unmolested. From HIStalk, the source of the survey, a site ordinarily read by a relatively narrow health IT-involved audience:If you�ve been following the current poll and comments on Ed Marx�s Blessing of the Hands post, you may wonder why the comments suddenly turned ugly. An atheist blogger linked to it and his followers dropped by to vote and opine. Since the point was to find out what industry people think, here�s the stat that counts: the poll was running 50-50 when it was just real readers voting. The Aug. 30 post below may reflect sabotage of the poll.-- SS--------------------------------It is commonly...
Food Allergy and 504 Plans at School
As I prepare for our annual 504 meeting with our school later this week, I am reminded about how far we have come. It was only in 2008, that Congress expanded the definition of who is eligible for federal protection. Now, individuals are protected- even if they don't suffer a disability all the time. Prior to 2008, parents had to fight for any accommodations for their food allergic children at school. It was at the discretion of the school district how food allergy would be handled. When my child with food allergies entered school 5 years ago, we did not have any type of formal written agreement. The school did allow him to carry an EpiPen® (beginning in kendergarten) and a special food allergy table was established in the cafeteria. After a disappointing experience in 2nd grade, where he...
A Meaningful Use and Standards Rule FAQ Part II
As a followup to the HIMSS Webinar I gave last week, here's an FAQ in the spirit of last month's Meaningful Use and Standards Rule FAQ.1.. The Emergency Department is mentioned in 9 Core Measures and 3 Menu Measures, yet industry discussions seem to focus on the ED for CPOE and Discharge instructions. What functions do ED Information Systems need to support? Are these functions for just admitted patients or all ED Patients?In my conversations with CMS, I believe that CMS will be issuing a corrections notice to clarify the role of the ED in the rule. 2. There are 44 Quality measures for Eligible Professionals. Do EHRs need to support all 44 measures to be certified?To achieve certification, EHRs must support the 3 Core Measures, the 3 Alternate Quality Measures and at least 3 others...
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Medical transcription outsourcing: Know the service provider
Medical transcription is the process of creating records of the patient-healthcare professional encounter. Medical transcription aids healthcare professionals by providing access to relevant information about the patient’s health history. Having detailed patient records aids the healthcare professionals provide quality healthcare without having to rely on repetitive inputs from patients, handwritten notes or relying on their memory. Patient records help healthcare facilities in starting the coding and billing process leading to claims. It can be said that medical transcription is vital for both patient care as well as to ensure efficient fund flow management.Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be an effective solution for the documentation needs of healthcare facilities. Outsourcing...
Similar Conclusions on Health IT Via Observation and Via Research: Is HIT 'Mission Impossible'?
The Wall Street Journal reported on a study in Health Affairs entitled "A Progress Report On Electronic Health Records In U.S. Hospitals" by Harvard researcher Ashish Jha and colleagues.An Aug. 27 WSJ Health Blog post was entitled "Only 2% of Hospitals Could Have Met �Meaningful Use� in 2009."While the topic of this Healthcare Renewal post is not about Jha's new article per se, I will provide the article's summary:Despite all the talk about digitizing the health-care world, only 11.9% of U.S. hospitals had adopted at least basic electronic medical records by last year, and only about 2% had done enough to qualify for future government financial...
Can a $1 Billion Group of Babies Provide Fair Value in Health Care?
The issue of executive compensation in health care seems to be attracting more media attention.A St Louis Post-Dispatch editorial noted how executive compensation for for-profit health insurance CEOs has grown. It started with a quote from Steven Hemsley, the CEO of UnitedHealth:Today the American people are questioning whether or not we receive fair value for the $2.6 trillion we, as a society, are expecting to spend this year on our health care system. The vast majority, including those of us at UnitedHealth Group, believe the answer is, 'No.'Here is a summary of the compensation information:Modern Healthcare, a leading health industry trade journal, published its annual executive compensation survey this week. Topping the list is Stephen Hemsley, quoted above, who gave a speech to the Detroit...
Saturday, August 28, 2010
More Examples of US Hospital Market Consolidation: Connecticut and Florida
Two recent stories from two different parts of the US continue the theme of ever increasing concentration of power in our health care system.ConnecticutThe Hartford Business Journal reported on growing interest in mergers among small Connecticut hospitals.Rising costs and reductions in government reimbursements related to health care reform could lead to consolidation among the state�s 29 acute care hospitals in the coming months and years, industry experts said.Indeed signs of consolidation in Connecticut are already taking shape. Danbury and New Milford hospitals, for example, recently signed an affiliation agreement that will put both organizations under the control of a single corporate parent.Meanwhile, the Central Connecticut Health Alliance, which is the parent company of the Hospital...
Friday, August 27, 2010
Medical transcription outsourcing: Need for Secure services
Medical transcription is the process of documenting the patient-healthcare professional encounter in detail. Patient records are an important component of healthcare. Patient records play an important role in the following: Record of symptoms, diagnoses and treatmentRecord of pre-existing health conditionsRecord of Allergies and current medicationProgress of treatmentBasis for referralsStatutory requirementEvidence in case of litigationBasis for coding and billingOutsourcing medical transcription has been found to be one of the most efficient, effective and economic methods for creating patient records. Time and again emphasis has been placed on the importance of ensuring security of confidential patient information. And the outsourced medical transcription service provider has an enormous...
