Featured Report: Privatizing Medicare would raise premiums for 59% of members

Fierce Health Payer
Oct,17,2012
by: Dina Overland
Shifting Medicare to a privatized program, a proposal touted by Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan on the presidential campaign trail, would create large disparities in premium costs, many of which would rise dramatically, throughout the country, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. If that plan took effect two years ago, 59 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries, or about 25 million people, would have paid higher premiums unless they switched to a cheaper plan, and 88 percent of Medicare Advantage members would be paying higher premiums, Kaiser Health News reported. "If coupled with caps on the growth in Medicare spending, a premium support approach could make federal (spending) for the Medicare program more predictable but also increase costs and financial risks for beneficiaries over time," the report states.
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This Week's Healthcare News
iHealthbeat
About $7.7B in Meaningful Use Payments Doled Out, CMS Says
Oct,18,2012
On Wednesday, CMS officials provided an update on the meaningful use program, saying that about $7.7 billion in incentive payments had been distributed as of last month, Government Health IT reports. Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments. The officials offered the update during the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's Government Health IT Virtual Briefing.
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ModernHealthcare.com
Mostashari urges CHIME crowd to be IT heroes
Oct,18,2012
by: Joseph Conn
Health information exchange, patient participation and population management are the three pillars of meaningful use of health information technology going forward, Dr. Farzad Mostashari said in a keynote speech and pep talk. “Every movement needs its heroes,” said Mostashari, who heads the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS, addressing the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives at their 2012 Fall CIO Forum in Indian Wells, Calif. “As best I can tell, you are the best candidates for filling the roles of heroes for this incredible journey that we're on.
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Health Data Management
HIT Policy Committee to Study EHR Overbilling
Oct, 17, 2012
by: Joseph Goedert
Farzad Mostashari, M.D., national coordinator for health information technology, has asked the advisory HIT Policy Committee to study if providers are using electronic health records to up-code billings to Medicare, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan investigative journalism organization. In an interview with the center, Mostashari said he wants to know if EHRs trigger higher billing codes when physicians cut-and-paste information from prior encounters with a patient when updating documentation. The center recently published a study that suggests overbilling is increasing as providers adopt EHRs. In part because of suspicions of up-coding, four powerful members of the U.S. House of Representatives recently sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calling for an immediate halt to the electronic health records meaningful use incentive program, which they consider to be weak.
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Health and Wellness Seminars Coming in 2013
Chicagoland Healthcare Professionals:
Are you concerned about your practice can meet the Meaningful Use 1 and 2 regulations? Are your still struggling to understand and complete your EHR network? Do you know if you even qualify for the over $20 billion dollar EHR Incentive program funds? If answered YES to any of these questions.
Then make plans this January, 19, 2013 to attend the Health and Wellness Seminar hosted by Chicago's Uptown Business Partners. These seminars will explain in clear English not tech speak how to understand and complete an EHR for your practice how fund it and real solutions on how to find and IT partner help you complete your EHR and qualify for the EHR Incentive program. The first seminar Understanding EHR will take you step by step on how EHR works and how to create an EHR network. We will be teaching this totally interactive seminar and giving you real solutions to your EHR problem.
So make plans to attend this seminar and get the answers you need to help your practice meet all of the Meaningful Use Rules.

If you need answers to your Healthcare IT needs now visit our Healthcare Managed Services page at Wirehead Technology