By Jeremy Guttman – Contrary to what some EHR proponents believe, DSM by itself is an unpopular and ineffective solution when it comes to true interoperability, care coordination and referral management. It has almost no practical benefit for referral management beyond what primary care practices use it for right now: getting credit for Meaningful Use stage 2.
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By Matt Fisher – Potentially lost in the week leading up to the July 4th holiday weekend, the OCR announced its latest HIPAA related breach settlement. The settlement is one of the first directed at a business associate and serves as a pointed reminder that business associates may be directly liable for the breaches that they may cause.
The Department of Health and Human Services has set forth goals that are challenging and ambitious. Reduce costs while improving quality of care by transitioning to evidence-based medicine that rewards all stakeholders across the value chain – such as government agencies, providers and insurance payers.
By D’Arcy Guerin Gue – Let’s face it, for providers, the Meaningful Use (MU) stage 2 requirements related to patient portals are not exactly onerous. With minor variations, providers are required to make health information available to half their patients within four days of a visit.
By Julie Rovner – Medical students cram a lot of basic science and medicine into their first two years of training. But most learn next to nothing about the intricacies of the health care system they are soon to enter. That’s something the medical school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., is trying to remedy.
By John Halamka MD – Meaningful Use Stage 2 has a requirement that I’ve always considered to be the “cart before the horse” – patients must be able to View/Download/Transmit their data. Viewing is great – we’ve done that at BIDMC since 1999 for all patients and all data.
By Deanne Kasim – With the increase in specialty drugs, innovative diagnostic testing, and precision medicine, it is expected that the use of the Prior Authorization will only increase with health insurance companies. Of course I have heard from many re: the (theoretical) fact that as the use of value-based provider reimbursement matures, there will be less and less need for a PA process.
By Roger Davis – “We are deadly serious about interoperability.” – Andy Slavitt, Acting Administrator of the CMS at the J. P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco in January 2016. For those of us in the healthcare vendor community, that defining statement sets the tone for the future interaction between organizations.
By Patrick Conway MD – Last year, a bipartisan Congressional majority passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, or MACRA. We have worked in the same spirit as the law’s model of partnership and progress as we implement policies to improve the health and well-being of Americans.