Electronic Medical Records

amednews: Early EMR adopters get a break; tougher criteria delayed to 2014 :: Dec. 12, 2011 ... American Medical News

2011-12-12T10:20:00.000-05:00

amednews: Early EMR adopters get a break; tougher criteria delayed to 2014 :: Dec. 12, 2011 ... American Medical News

Poll ranks top inpatient EHRs based on customer experience | Healthcare IT News

2011-12-08T14:26:00.001-05:00

Medisoft Clinical by McKesson ranks as one of top ten EHR for MU. Poll ranks top inpatient EHRs based on customer experience Healthcare IT News

2011-12-06T11:24:00.001-05:00

Must Knows about ANSI 5010

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced a 90-day extension for enforcing penalties on those physicians whom have not yet converted to ANSI 5010. This opportunity will serve for physicians to familiarize themselves with the conversion to ANSI 5010 until March 31st, 2012, before acquiring penalties. However, the sooner the conversion process begins, the fewer the incurred delays in receiving reimbursements and additional paperwork for the physician and practice to be impacted with

Minimize Cash Flow Interruptions

Converting to Version 5010 before December 31st, 2011, will save practices time and money.

"I'm betting that some organizations will think this means they don't have to implement HIPAA 5010 for another 90 days, but that would be wrong. Any claims or bills they submit after Jan 1, 2012, that are not in HIPAA 5010 will still get rejected, but this delay in enforcement will also allow them to resubmit in the appropriate HIPAA 5010 format without penalty," said AHIMA-certified coding trainer Pati Hildebrand. Practice.

The sooner the practice starts transitioning, the more time billing staff will have to work through the kinks and reduce claim rejection risks.

Transitioning to ANSI 5010 is Easy with Medisoft V17 sp2 Revenue Management

All of Medisoft V17 sp2 users will completely avoid any complications since Medisoft V17 revenue management has long been ANSI 5010 ready.

Physicians can prepare themselves for this change with Medisoft V17 sp2 highly rated customer support. Aside from hosting webinars in efforts to train physicians and staff on how to comply with Version 5010, Sunrise Services is offering services to set up physicians' 5010 EDI for their clearinghouses, a required part of Version 5010 compliance.

For more information on Revenue Management and the specialty-specific tailor made solutions, visit http://www.sunrize.com/ or give one of our sales specialist a call on our toll free number 888-880-0384.

Sunrise Services LLC

142 Village Lane Ste C

Mount Washington, KY 40047

PH: 502-538-4665

Fax: 502-538-6853

Website: http://www.sunrize.com/

Stage 2 MU deadline extended to 2014

2011-12-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

Stage 2 MU deadline extended to 2014

2011-11-21T15:44:00.001-05:00

EHRs are inevitable, experts say

Healthcare IT News

November 21, 2011

Diana Manos, Senior Editor

WASHINGTON – Electronic health records will become the norm, sooner than later, experts said at a summit hosted Friday by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).

The bottom line, said many of the speakers at ONC's Grantee and Stakeholder Summit, is that consumers are demanding EHRs. The government is helping with adoption, but this is not nearly as influential as the healthcare consumer's pressure on providers.

National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD, said the patient is not just "a ticket holder crammed into economy."

"The patient is the copilot" with his or her healthcare provider, Mostashari said. "Increasingly, we'll hear patients, consumers, people expecting more out of their interactions with others. So we're going to see all of the pieces come together for this."

In a keynote speech, Jay Walker, curator for the TEDMED Conference, a forum for healthcare innovation, said "tech speed" is the world we live in. "Med speed" is much slower. Too slow, in fact, for consumer's liking, he said.

In a quick survey of the audience of 1,200 people, Walker asked who does not possess a smart card. Only fifteen people raised their hands. Walker pointed out that would not have been true five years ago. Smart cards are a new phenomenon, and part of the exponentially changing world consumers live in. Paper maps, phone books and rolodexes are now all obsolete. "The consumer is driving all of the change," he said.

"Suddenly the patients are in charge of the future, instead of the healthcare system," Walker added. "You are at the front line when you walk into a doctor's office and say, 'it's time for electronic health records.'"

Walker said the cell phone – with some 1.2 billion sold this year – is having a greater impact on society than the printing press. "This is driving the future," he said. "Your doctor thinks he can avoid this? It would be like avoiding electricity in 1900."

Walker said historically, there are five stages society goes through when major change takes place.

First, the idea is dismissed as a pipe dream. Second, the change is delayed. Third – the stage currently held by EHRs – there is disruption by early adopters. "They attack the marketplace and this triggers the antibodies. The naysayers come out of the woodwork."

The fourth stage is the domino stage, when things are inevitable and the bandwagon effect kicks in. And finally, there is dominance. The change is fully made.

Walker encouraged innovators and stakeholders to hang on. Soon the domino effect for EHR adoption will kick in.

"Never in history has the speed of change been this fast," Walker said. "The force of the wave is so powerful, it's not going to get slowed."

Aneesh Chopra, the United States chief technology officer said the change is "palpable and extremely rewarding."

"There has never a better time to be an innovator in healthcare," he said. "We are strongly motivated by the evidence."

"The adoption of EHRs is on the move," Chopra added. "Calculate the rate of change. The rate of change blows your mind. We have doubled EHR adoption in two years. A whole community is dialoguing about the adoption. This is very clearly what we are anticipating."

www.sunrize.com/medisoftclinical.htm

CMS grants HIPAA 5010 stragglers more time

2011-11-18T11:15:00.000-05:00

As the Jan. 1, 2012 deadline to transition to HIPAA 5010 encroaches, those who are ill prepared for the change can breathe a sigh of relief—at least for two more months. CMS grants HIPAA 5010 stragglers more time

6 golden rules of EMR implementation | Healthcare IT News

2011-11-16T14:08:00.000-05:00

Thought every one would be interested in this article from healthcareitnews. It makes a lot of sense.
6 golden rules of EMR implementation Healthcare IT News

Déjà vu! Payment via paper claims may be required after 5010 conversion - - Medical Economics | Practice Management

2011-11-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

Found this disturbing article in Medical Economics regarding the readiness of medical practices for ANSI 5010. Déjà vu! Payment via paper claims may be required after 5010 conversion - - Medical Economics Practice Management
It appears that as the deadline looms less than 5% of practices are fully implemented. This is going to spell major money problems for any practice filing electronic claims.

MGMA: Overnight EHR roll-outs aren't effective

2011-10-26T12:15:00.000-04:00

LAS VEGAS—If EHRs are going to be optimized to increase efficiency and the bottom line, administrators should consider more inclusivity in the implementation process, staff and physician workflows, training time and a phased-in implementation, according to an Oct. 24 presentation at the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) 2011 annual conference.

While implementing an EHR, “think inclusively,” encouraged presenter Ron Anderson, of CHMB, which provides technology and business services for healthcare providers. He said this involves bringing all the stakeholders to the table—both internally (front office, back office, management and providers) and externally (patients and outside resources, such as labs, device manufacturers, hospitals and business service vendors).

He encouraged the administrators in the audience to start by assessing existing current workflows, which typically includes appointment scheduling, gathering and capturing patient information and the transference of forms—which encompasses everything from patient registration to HIPAA documents to patient histories. Anderson also encouraged administrators to model and review new potential workflow with all pertinent staff members.

As providers reviewing these workflow shifts, Anderson advised:

•Don’t replicate paper workflows;

•Strive for “lowest” cost point of data entry;

•While the nurse does more, the providers should do less;

•Automate, automate, automate; and

•Leverage technology as much as possible.

He strongly recommended the use of patient portals and the use of voice recognition, rather than transcription. “If a typical encounter requires 15 clicks or more from a physician, it’s time to go to voice recognition,” Anderson said. “Sometimes, being too customized just becomes cumbersome to the daily process.”

He also stressed the importance of training time, which often gets overlooked because of busy schedules. Using MGMA survey data, 39.9 percent of EHR users that were surveyed said they “severely under-allocated time for training.”

Also, a strategic phased implementation is superior, according to Anderson. “Make sure staff and providers are trained on new devices and associated applications prior to going live on new PM [practice management]/EHR,” he said. New applications should be rolled out in phases (first staff, providers last):

1.PM – front office staff

2.EHR phase 1 – front and back office staff

3.EHR phase 2 – all staff and providers

4.EHR phase 3 – providers at point of care

In his conclusion, Anderson suggested that if a consultant is hired and the implementation goes too smoothly, then all the kinks are probably not worked out. “Overnight EHR/PM big-bang roll-outs are very unlikely to produce good results or improved workflow, and there’s no going back once the paper charts are gone.”

Therefore, he encouraged a strategic approach that requires a great deal of time and effort prior to implementation to optimize workflow and garner some early wins, such as e-prescribing; lab or imaging orders; tasking; referral/consults; and letter generation.

Article provided by CMIO

Sunrise Services Medisoft Clinical

ANSI 5010 Guidance Checklist

2011-10-13T14:10:00.000-04:00

The following list is a checklist of activities that will guide you through your implementation of the new 5010 transactions.

Project Planning:

· Gain an understanding of the impact of the updates to the 5010 transactions.

· Look to your vendor (Sunrise Services LLC) for information and resources.

· Identify a project leader or even a project team.

· Develop a project plan.

Assessment:

· Identify all HIPAA transactions you are currently doing.

· Identify any HIPAA transactions that you aren’t currently doing, but want to implement electronically now.

· Create a list of your payors, including a contact person, phone number, and email address for each.

· Identify the contact person, phone number, and email address for your Clearinghouse or Billing Service, if applicable.

· Identify your software/system vendor’s (Sunrise Services LLC: Tom Clark, (888) 880-0384, http://www.sunrize.com/) contact person, phone number, and email address.

· Contact your vendor (Sunrise Services LLC) to determine their implementation plans for the 5010 transactions.

· Contact your clearinghouse or billing service to determine their implementation plans for the 5010 transactions.

· Contact your payors to determine their implementation plans for the 5010 transactions.

· Identify any work flow processes that need to be modified.

Implementation:

· Identify when your vendor (Sunrise Services LLC) will install your updates.

· Identify when your Billing Service’s system changes will be installed, if applicable.

· Contact your clearinghouse to determine when it can begin testing with you, if applicable.

· Contact your payors to determine when they can begin testing with you.

· Complete internal testing. This can be done with the help of your vendor (Sunrise Services LLC).

· Complete external testing with your billing service and/or clearinghouse, if applicable.

· Complete external testing with your Payors.

· Conduct staff training to prevent delay in Revenue Flow. (Sunrise Services offers excellent training and pricing.)

· Begin using 5010 transactions before or on January 1, 2012.

Continuing to Monitor:

· Monitor the exchange of the 5010 transactions.

· Report any issues identified with the transactions to the appropriate organization (notify your vendor, Sunrise Services LLC, as well).

http://www.sunrize.com/ or (888) 880-0384

6 Major Disruptions Still To Come In Healthcare | Fast Company

2011-08-16T10:12:00.000-04:00

6 Major Disruptions Still To Come In Healthcare | Fast Company

McKesson Practice Choice EHR

2011-08-15T16:06:00.000-04:00

McKesson Practice Choice SaaS-based EHR to Launch this Fall

McKesson Practice Choice SaaS-based EHR to Launch this FallThis fall marks a significant milestone for us. We have been working hard for the last few years on Fusion and the time is now upon us to unveil the solution to the market. We are thrilled to announce that Fusion’s official name is McKesson Practice Choice™ and that next month will mark its introduction into the physician office market.
There has been a considerable amount of work done by PPS team members and tremendous input from the VAR community to get McKesson Practice Choice to its ready-state for the marketing launch next month. We couldn’t be more excited about launching the new solution at leading primary care conference, the Annual American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Scientific Assembly in Orlando, FL.
In addition to McKesson Practice Choice, we will also be unveiling our new service offering for the independent physician practice, McKesson Practice Care™. McKesson Practice Care is both a key business strategy and service offering that will be available to small primary care practices who are utilizing either Practice Partner®, Medisoft® Clinical, Lytec® MD, or McKesson Practice Choice™. Many of you have heard Tim Caver present on this new offering and we are thrilled to be also introducing this to the market. Read complete story at http://is.gd/f4njGO

Medicare proposed rule regarding payment policies under the 2012 physician fee schedule for Medicare Part B | MedicareMentor Blog

2011-08-05T11:18:00.001-04:00

Medicare proposed rule regarding payment policies under the 2012 physician fee schedule for Medicare Part B MedicareMentor Blog

The Importance of Being ANSI 5010 Ready

2011-08-04T15:27:00.000-04:00

HIPAA 5010 was created to replace the current version of the X12 standards that covered entities (payors, clearinghouses, and certain providers) have to use when performing electronic transactions. We are currently using ANSI version 4010. The ANSI version 5010 will allow EDI transactions to differentiate between ICD-9 codes that we use now and the upcoming ICD-10 codes. Not being ANSI 5010 ready means you won’t be ICD-10 ready. According to Rhonda Buckholtz, VP of ICD-10 education and training at AAPC, “If you have not begun preparing for 5010, you must start right away. Compliance deadlines are not being pushed back; practices will suffer significant cash flow issues if they are not ready.” The following will help you prepare for ICD-10 by being ANSI 5010 ready:

• Realize that 5010 is not just an IT (information technology) project and that working with your vendor is an important part of this process.
• TALK to your vendor, billing service, or clearinghouse about the 5010 changes and upgrades to see how they can be integrated into your current system and whether training will be required. Also make sure to talk to your vendor about testing for 5010 transactions. This will allow you the opportunity to make sure everything is ready for the 5010 deadline of January 1, 2012.
• Be aware of the data reporting changes and revisions. Here are just a few of those changes:
1. You can no longer use a PO Box in the Billing Provider Address Field.
2. You must report a nine-digit ZIP code in the Billing Provider and Service Facility Location Address fields.
3. Patients who have a unique health plan member ID will now be reported as the subscriber. (Office staff will need to be trained on this change.)
4. Anesthesia time will no longer be reported in units but in minutes. Physicians need to make sure that their system only provides minutes for anesthesia time-based procedure codes that do not have a time period in the description.
5. Transactions have been modified for the new ICD-10 diagnosis and procedure codes.
• Your practice management system may need an upgrade to be able to work with the required 5010 data so work with your vendor on getting these upgrades completed.
• Complete the internal testing of the upgrades you receive to make sure your system can generate 5010 transactions. Ask your vendor if they will do the testing for you and don’t forget the testing deadline is January 1, 2012.
• Ask your vendor for training options available and the pricing.
• Be prepared for unforeseen problems and disruptions in your revenue flow by doing the following:
1. Talk to your Medicare administrative contractor about their advance payment policy. Make sure to ask about the format for a request, where to send it, timeframes for money distribution, etc.
2. Talk to all your other commercial payors to see if they have any advance payment policies as well.
3. Establish a line of credit with a financial institution.
4. Save money over the next few months (if necessary) to carry you over until any problems are resolved.

Lessons from Canada - Challenges of family practice: using electronic medical records

2011-07-21T13:25:00.000-04:00

NEWS

July 20, Challenges of family practice: using electronic medical records

Family doctors who think introducing electronic medical records to their practices will immediately help them to more efficiently empty their waiting rooms may be in for a surprise.

The office is rewired. The holes have been patched where the electricians gouged out the drywall and all is freshly repainted. Patients’ health records are glittering on the new laptop and all the fancy but pricey toys are humming away doing things that no one in the office completely understands but the salesman insisted were absolutely integral to the smooth operation of whole electronic medical records (EMRs) system.

Now what?

Well, for most doctors, it turns out that the path to becoming a thoroughly modern electronic physician has a few more twists and turns. In fact, there are even some obstacles on the road.
Foremost among those may be the training of staff to operate the fancy new systems and the impact that initial adoption of EMRs has on the volume of family practice.

A lot of training must be provided to staff to use EMRs effectively, says Ann Alsaffar, president of the Canadian Family Practice Nurses Association, who along with husband Dr. Heath Alsaffar recently introduced electronic medical records into the couple’s Ottawa, Ontario-based offices (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-3929).
Contrary to common belief, the Alsaffars soon discovered that EMRs don’t necessarily yield immediate office efficiencies because the challenges, and the time required, to implement an electronic system actually mean that less time is available to see patients.

Needless to say, that has a detrimental impact on financial bottom lines, notes Dr. Robert Boulay, president of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC).

While the upfront costs of introducing EMRs can be manageable, many physicians are unaware that doing so can result in a decrease in the number of patients seen for a period of time up to 12-to-18 months, Boulay says. “I think that’s the real crux of the implementation issue. So what the CFPC really has been trying to advocate for is for increased support for physicians while they’re making that transition,” including financial support to hire additional required staff.

Still another obstacle lies in the tricky distinction between electronic medical records (EMRs) and electronic health records (EHRs). The former refers to recordkeeping systems at the doctor–patient level that are used primarily as an aid in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of disease. The latter refer to national electronic architecture that is used to aggregate health information in such a way that it would be valuable for policymakers, researchers and health administrators.

Although some believe that the greatest value to the health care system lies in EHRs for population data searches, Boulay notes that doctors can also use EMRs for similar, but smaller-scale searches of their own patients. EMRs can “help doctors look at their own patient demographic, you know the patients they are directly responsible for and [see] if there are particular needs within that group.”

He adds, though, that the value of EMRs is “hobbled,” if you can’t search data effectively across different systems.

And as many family doctors implementing EMRs have discovered, Canada’s development of EMRs and EHRs hasn’t exactly been done in tandem. Systems are often incompatible, often use different standards, and often aren’t capable of connecting with one another, whether that’s to a provincial network, or to a hospital or pharmacy.

Even connecting between EMRs, as between those of an office and a hospital, can be problematic, says Alsaffar, noting that to connect with a local Ottawa hospital, it’s necessary to “get a password, a grid card, and some other kind of key to get into the hospital to have a look at the labs and the reports in the hospital system.”

Connectivity can be easier in smaller communities because there are often just a handful of systems with which to connect, she adds. “For a group like us that are connecting to different hospitals, different pharmacies, so many other different resources that we need to access, it gets very complicated.”

That’s only magnified when it comes to connectivity between EMRs and EHRs. Data migration from one system to another can be “troublesome,” even in a province like Nova Scotia which is leader in connecting EMRs to hospital-based EHRs, says Dr. Jane Brooks, a rural family physician in a collaborative practice in the small community of Middleton, Nova Scotia. Even in Nova Scotia, there are physicians who can’t transfer data between the province’s three preferred vendors, and if the government ever changes systems, it will mean that a lot of data will have to be re-entered, she adds.

In many parts of the country, data transfer is possible but it’s a “very manually intensive process and even when the transfer takes place, the data needs to be checked for consistency and accuracy and reliability,” says Alan Brookstone, CEO for CanadianEMR, a resource organization that provides a forum for ratings and reviews of EMR systems.

Basic data can usually be transferred but auxiliary information in different systems is often stored in different formats, he adds. And while some provinces, such as Alberta, have done system-to-system transfers, Canada as a whole has not addressed such issues as data transfers when patients relocate within the country. Typically, doctors still have to make a PDF version of a patient’s EMR, or print out a hard copy for the patient to take to their next physician.

For the average doctor, all that lack of connectivity, at every level, essentially translates into the nightmare known as data entry.

“Without this type of connectivity, I think the workload for family physicians in their office likely increases substantially because it really means that you have to subsequently enter a lot of data,” Boulay says.

“I think some people worry they won’t have all the information they need at their fingertips,” Brooks says. “For people who have looked after a patient for 20 years, do you scan the whole paper chart into the EMR or do you just pick parts out or do you just keep the paper chart and refer to it if you want to.”

Boulay says that the data migration problems are further compounded by concerns that doctors have about ensuring confidentiality of patient records. “I think family physicians, rightly so, have some concern about the security of data. Despite assurance from EHR folk and EMR vendors, I think we nonetheless have this undercurrent of anxiety.”

Some doctors find that the solution to many of the difficulties lies in backing up their EMRs with old-fashioned paper records kept in the basement, says Dr. Hendrik Visser, a family physician in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island. But Visser says that adding a parallel system is inefficient and paper records should only be referred to if absolutely necessary.

Visser, who developed his own EMR system in the 1980s, says he never imagined that health information technologies would still be lagging in the new millennium and still be plagued with obstacles. “I think it’s shameful that for human health we’re so far behind in information technology that we’re still relying too heavily on paper with the duplication and all the inefficiency that goes with the old-fashioned record,” he says. “Veterinarian medicine here on the island is far further along than human medicine.”

DOI:10.1503/cmaj.109-3930— Erin Walkinshaw, Ottawa, Ont

amednews: Health IT benefits becoming more apparent :: April 6, 2011 ... American Medical News

2011-04-06T15:53:00.000-04:00

amednews: Health IT benefits becoming more apparent :: April 6, 2011 ... American Medical News

Webinar: Small practices need to get going on 5010

2011-04-06T14:20:00.000-04:00

Webinar: Small practices need to get going on 5010

amednews: How to maximize patient flow through the office :: Feb. 14, 2011 ... American Medical News

2011-02-16T12:31:00.000-05:00

amednews: How to maximize patient flow through the office :: Feb. 14, 2011 ... American Medical News

MEDISOFT 17 Is Now Available

2010-12-07T13:18:00.000-05:00

This version of Medisoft® will help you prepare for the new realities of health care finance with Medisoft® v17 the ANSI 5010-compliant practice management solution from McKesson. Start the process now and reduce the risk of rejected claims and decreased cash fl ow as ANSI 5010 is adopted.
Let Sunrise Services help your practice today 1-888-880-0384 http://www.sunrize.com/

Are YOU Ready for the EHR industry?

2010-11-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

http://sunrize.com/ready.htm

CMIO News Portals | EMR-EHR | National EHR safety system launched

2010-11-16T10:07:00.000-05:00

CMIO News Portals EMR-EHR National EHR safety system launched

Invitation to attend free Electronic Health Record Educational Seminar

2010-11-12T16:44:00.000-05:00

For more information go to Sunrise Services website
http://www.sunrize.com

6 Steps to Successful Deployment of an Electronic Medical Record System

2010-11-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

6 Steps to Successful Deployment of an Electronic Medical Record System ASC Turnarounds: Ideas to Improve Performance

Sunrise Services can help 1-888-880-0384

Are You Ready For The Upcoming Healthcare Changes?

2010-11-11T12:36:00.000-05:00

The Transition to 5010 and ICD-10CM/PCS will be a challenge. The key to success in this transition is thorough and advance preparation. If you think that this will not affect your practice or billing service think again. The change is coming and you need to be prepared. The staff at Sunrise Services is trained to help you through this transition.

http://www.sunrize.com/ 1-888-880-0384

How to Prepare for ICD-10 Coding, Software Revisions

2010-11-10T13:37:00.000-05:00

How to Prepare for ICD-10 Coding, Software Revisions

Contact Sunrise Services www.sunrize.com 1-888-880-0384