Featured Report: Survey: Small Business Owners Have Poor Grasp of Health Reform

Health data Management
Oct,31,2012
by: Joseph Goedert
A survey by online health benefits seller eHealthInsurance of 439 small business clients finds most do not understand applicable provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The act requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide coverage. Only two of the surveyed clients were large enough to fall under the requirement, yet 34 percent believed they had to provide coverage, and another 35 percent didn’t know. Thirty-one percent correctly knew that they were not required to pay a tax if they did not offer insurance because of the size of their business. Read Report

This Week's Healthcare News
Health Data Management
What Would RomneyCare Look Like?
Nov,02,2012
by: Joseph Goedert
Should President Obama win a second term, there is little to wonder about his administration’s plans for the health care industry. The president has shown his hand since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, and plenty of provisions remain to be implemented. But what happens if Gov. Mitt Romney prevails on November 6? The answers are much less clear.
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iHealthbeat
Coalition Seeks Greater Access to Health Care Cost Information
Nov,01,2012
Catalyst for Payment Reform -- a not-for-profit coalition of major companies and labor unions -- has issued a policy platform calling for broader availability and transparency of health care cost data by January 2014, Modern Healthcare reports (Zigmond, Modern Healthcare, 11/1).

Need for Greater Transparency According to CPR, consumers typically learn the cost of health care services only after receiving a bill, thus denying them the opportunity to find better deals. The group stated that consumers "have the right to know the price and quality of their health care choices," particularly as medical costs are rising and high-deductible health care plans are becoming more common.
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ModernHealthcare.com
AHA sues HHS over Medicare payment denials
Nov, 01, 2012
by: Rich Daly and Joe Carlson
In a federal lawsuit, the American Hospital Association and four healthcare providers accuse HHS of illegally denying hospitals Medicare payments for audited outpatient procedures. The Chicago-based interest group for nearly 5,000 hospitals says in the complaint (PDF) that HHS maintains an illegal policy of refusing to pay hospitals for Medicare outpatient services in cases where auditors retroactively conclude that inpatient care should have been delivered outside the hospital. “It's not acceptable that we have to go through a long, laborious and costly appeal process for payments for medical necessary services and especially when that payment is denied,” Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the AHA, said in an interview.
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Health and Wellness Seminars Coming January 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, 9, 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