practice management software news from FierceHealthIT

Physician groups are even further behind the 5010 implementation curve than hospitals are. A majority of the respondents to a recent survey by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) said Read more...

Right now, 25 percent of physician claims are submitted on paper each year. That's a whopping 3 billion claims still being handled the old-fashioned way. The vast majority of those claims are being Read more...

It's the age-old "give them a taste and they'll buy" routine. RemedyMD, a Sandy, UT.-based electronic health records vendor, has agreed to give ambulatory practice physicians' offices a free license Read more...

Over the past month or so, private investment firms have begun to sink money into health IT companies. Not only that, the firms are willing to pay "reasonable" prices rather than rock-bottom, Read more...

> A Pittsburgh health plan has begun expanding its business process outsourcing. It's already been outsourcing some functions, an effort which began more than 10 year ago. Read more...

Dr. Gordon Moore was unhappy with the high volume of patients he was required to see as a staff physician in a hospital-owned medical practice--30 plus a day, each of whom only got 15 minutes of his time. Unwilling to keep that pace up, in 2001 Moore took out a $15,000 business loan and opened his own one-man practice. He's not alone. While no one has exact statistics, a growing number of doctors are following his model, building tiny but high-tech practices that allow them to work on …

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Last, but definitely not least, there's obviously still going to be activity around EMRs, but this isn't your father's Oldsmobile. While I'm at HIMSS, I think it will be smart to hit the booths of few EMR and clinical data management vendors, particularly those that I think have a chance to make disruptive changes in the business.

For example, I'm personally intrigued by Medsphere's commercial, Open Source implementation of the accolade-winning VistA platform created for the VA. Vendors such as eClinicalWorks and Wellogic are doing something worthwhile, in that their technology can merge EMR on practice management software, a model that could help give EMRs a footing in smaller practices with a slim budget. It's also worth checking out any hosted EMR models out there. All told, anything that integrates traditional EMRs (analogues of the paper record) with important additional sources of clinical information is worth a good, long look. And if it gets this done with an eye on automating clinical pathways, or creates a new business model making implementation cheap and easy for MDs, even better. Keep your eyes peeled, and I will too.

BlueCross BlueShield of Florida and Humana are kicking off an initiative designed to speed real-time claims adjudication. The two health plans are already partners in Availity, a claims processing gateway. With this initiative, they plan to expand the effort to other payers, claims clearinghouses and practice management groups, the groups said in their press release. Physician groups that participate in this phase of the RTCA rollout must use physician physician revenue, clinical cycle …

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Welcome, everyone, to my first issue as editor of FierceHealthIT. Some of you already know me as editor of Fierce sister publication FierceHealthcare, our daily publication …

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New research is predicting that with the growth in consumer-driven health plans, the industry will come to rely on "smart" debit cards linking clinical data, health plan coverage/eligibility information and personal identity details. The study, conducted by HealthLeaders/Interstudy, predicts that in time, a single card will have access to a consumer's bank, payor and provider systems. In this world, it will be possible for a consumer to see a provider, get benefits verified, a claim …

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