Financial Services

Meaningful Use Stage 1 encouraged physicians to implement an EHR in order to capture discrete and some unstructured healthcare data with the future goal of sharing this across the industry. Stage 2 reimbursement (preliminary) will be based on the patient taking an active role in the sharing of this data. This is contrary to the […]

Industry Today Healthcare ranks as the largest industry in the world and is responsible for generating over $4.5 billion in revenue. While the United States is home to only 5% of the total world population, US residences are responsible for nearly half ($2.2 billion) of annual healthcare expenditures. The industry provides employment to over 15 […]

Does the mere mention of “ICD-10” bring on an anxiety attack of some sort? For the majority, the answer is yes! This is probably because, like numerous organizations, you still haven’t begun the necessary planning for the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10. Hospital administrators, physicians and medical coders are dropping to their knees and praying […]

Health care organizations which do not qualify for incentive reimbursement have in large part not implemented EHRs, leading researchers involved in a study published in the March issue of Health Affairs to conclude that it is the incentives rather than factors such as improving patient care which are driving EHR adoption. Under the 2009 federal […]

Providers are increasing their reliance on cloud technology to better address organizational hiccups and bottlenecks. Why? Because cloud technology allows resources to be accessed on demand, which results in a more effective and efficient work force, stronger operations and better customer care. It is a low-cost option that blows the competition out of the water. […]

Cindy O’Neill from Microsoft interviewed Perficient’s Martin Sizemore at HIMSS 2012 on accountable care, meaningful use, mobility, social media, cloud, portals and business intelligence solutions.

Several of the organizations that represent some of the many stakeholders in the healthcare delivery system have turned up the volume against ICD-10, yet again. Some of the arguments against it are that there’s too much of a burden due to compliance work already being done on other directives and some have also exclaimed that […]

The Stage 2 Meaningful Use objectives defined in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act may be the best first step toward more robust healthcare provider analytics and reporting. However, the beauty of these tools is not limited to meeting regulatory mandates alone. These data analysis and reporting requirements can usher […]

Michael Planchart, my colleague, posted a blog a few days ago about the Fed’s decision to delay the ICD-10 implementation deadline. He makes some great points and I don’t completely disagree with his view that the delay will have negative impacts. Michael asks, “Could someone please explain to me why we should halt any national […]

The point of healthcare technology is to close the gap between quality, cost and access. As we have said before, EMRs don’t close the gap, but they are a very necessary piece to closing the gap. However, a gap still exists between the information in an EMR and the information a clinician needs in the […]

Regardless of the pending ICD-10 deadline extension, the healthcare industry will still need aggressive effort in refinement of defensible ICD-10 General Equivalency Maps (GEMs), remediation of impacted processes and systems, and a roadmap to figure out how payers and providers can work together to achieve neutrality objectives. To date, there has been only limited guidance […]

The newest announcement regarding Meaningful Stage II requirements was made on February 22, 2012, and met an equal balance of fanfare and disappointment from the healthcare sector. Apparently, a fair number of players were hoping that Stage II of Meaningful Use would raise the bar to better tie HIT adoptions, such as EHRs, to improvements […]