Featured Report: More hospitals interested in launching health plans

More hospitals interested in launching health plans

Fierce Health Payer July,10,2013 by:Dina Overland Health insurers are likely to face new competition from many different areas of the healthcare market. Rising competition just might come from hospitals looking to launch their own health plans, The Washington Post reported. Read More

Smartphones Call On Teens to Take Their Asthma Meds

Consultant Live July,08,2013 Mark L. Fuerst A unique cell phone application that targets minority adolescents who have asthma aims to reduce exacerbations of the condition and emergency department (ED) visits. In the new 3-month-long study, each of the 14 adolescents (age, 11 to 16 years) receives a smartphone preloaded with an application that uses a reward system to encourage them to take their daily asthma controller medications. "This is a new approach to engage teenagers and change behavior through the use of positive feedback via accountability and persuasive visualization," Giselle Mosnaim, MD, Assistant Professor of Allergy and Immunology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told ConsultantLive. Read Report

Telehealth after surgery proves effective in low-risk cases

Fierce Health IT July,11,2013 by:Susan D. Hall Telehealth follow-up to ambulatory surgery can be as effective as an in-person visit in some cases, according to a study at JAMA Surgery that also found the tactic saves time and money and improves patient satisfaction. The study followed 115 patients who underwent elective open hernia repair and 26 who had laparoscopic gall bladder removal at the VA Palo Alto Hospital in California. These two procedures were chosen because potential complications are well-known and infrequent. Patients tend to have few issues requiring acute medical attention during follow-up visits Read More

Wirehead Technology's Healthcare IT Managed Services

EHR Incentive Program Healthcare Professionals Did You Know? Non-hospital-based physicians and other eligible professionals can obtain incentive payments of as much as $44,000 under Medicare or $63,750 under Medicaid. Under both Medicare and Medicaid, eligible hospitals may receive millions of dollars for implementing and meaningfully using certified EHR technology. About two-thirds (65 percent) of hospitals and 32 percent of office-based physicians plan to enroll in meaningful use programs by the end of 2012 in order to receive the maximum incentives, according to survey results announced Thursday morning. Fewer federal dollars will be available to hospitals and doctors that wait to adopt EHR technology, and failure to meaningfully use EHRs starting in 2015 will result in Medicare penalties. Watch this video about how to register for the EHR Incentive program. EHR Incentive Program Registration Do you need help with HIPAA and HITECH? Then download and Read our HIPAA Guide for for Doctors and Small Clinics that contains HIPAA security regulations and check lists that you can use to start your EMR network.

Wirehead Technology's Healthcare IT Managed Services Healthcare Providers are you having trouble keeping up with the new government rules and regulations in Healthcare and don't know where to turn to get help? Then let us help you Wirehead Technology's Healthcare Managed IT Services will work with you to help you not only understand the rules but put together all the IT services that will help you comply with all the new Healthcare rules and stay with you to make sure your Healthcare practice is always up to date on all of the rules to come visit our Healthcare IT Page

Featured Report: Everyone is jumping on the Obamacare marketing bandwagon - thank goodness

Everyone is jumping on the Obamacare marketing bandwagon - thank goodness

Med City News July,03,2013 by: Veronica Combs Last week MomsRising announced Wellness Wonder Teams whose mission is to get the word out about health insurance exchanges. This week Health and Human Services awarded $33 million in grant money to get more children enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. Read More

ONC Finalizes Its Health I.T. Patient Safety Plan

Health Data Management July,02,2013 Joseph Goedert The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has released its final Health I.T. Patient Safety Plan, following issuance of a draft plan for public comment last December. The final plan has two core objectives: To use health I.T. to make care safer and to continuously improve the safety of I.T. "Achieving these objectives is a shared responsibility," the ONC report states. "No one entity or group can fully realize the potential of health I.T. to improve patient safety." Read Report

Hearing: Interoperability, regulations are main obstacles for mHealth developers

Fierce Mobile Healthcare July,01,2013 by:Greg Slabodkin The biggest challenges confronting mobile medical app entrepreneurs are interoperability and government regulations, according to witness testimony from four app developers at a June 27 hearing held by the House Small Business Subcommittee on Health and Technology. "Increased governmental and industrial support for start-up organizations and health care researchers like us is needed, as is increased federal support of interoperability standards that enable communication between different information technology systems," testified Sabrina Casucci, an entrepreneur and Ph.D candidate in industrial and systems engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo Read More

Wirehead Technology Healthcare IT Managed Services

EHR Incentive Program Healthcare Professionals Did You Know? Non-hospital-based physicians and other eligible professionals can obtain incentive payments of as much as $44,000 under Medicare or $63,750 under Medicaid. Under both Medicare and Medicaid, eligible hospitals may receive millions of dollars for implementing and meaningfully using certified EHR technology. About two-thirds (65 percent) of hospitals and 32 percent of office-based physicians plan to enroll in meaningful use programs by the end of 2012 in order to receive the maximum incentives, according to survey results announced Thursday morning. Fewer federal dollars will be available to hospitals and doctors that wait to adopt EHR technology, and failure to meaningfully use EHRs starting in 2015 will result in Medicare penalties. Watch this video about how to register for the EHR Incentive program. EHR Incentive Program Registration Do you need help with HIPAA and HITECH? Then download and Read our HIPAA Guide for for Doctors and Small Clinics that contains HIPAA security regulations and check lists that you can use to start your EMR network.

Wirehead Technology's Healthcare IT Managed Services Healthcare Providers are you having trouble keeping up with the new government rules and regulations in Healthcare and don't know where to turn to get help? Then let us help you Wirehead Technology's Healthcare Managed IT Services will work with you to help you not only understand the rules but put together all the IT services that will help you comply with all the new Healthcare rules and stay with you to make sure your Healthcare practice is always up to date on all of the rules to come visit our Healthcare IT Page

Featured Report: CMS Adds Several Features to Physician Compare Website

ONC to Congress: HIEs are Progressing

Health Data Management June,27,2013 Joseph Goedert In its new annual report to Congress on the status of health information technology adoption across the nation, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology provides an update on the reach of statewide health information exchanges funded under the economic stimulus law. Thirty-nine states and territories had operational statewide health information exchanges offering broadly available directed exchange services--the secure sharing of information between two trusted parties--in December 2012, ONC reports. Directed exchange services were available in certain regions in four states, in pilot stage in five others and not available in eight. Twenty-five states and territories, either through the statewide HIE or other services, broadly offer query exchange to electronically ask for and receive information when the holder of the information is not known. Query exchange is available in some regions in 11 states and not available in 20. Read Report

CMS Adds Several Features to Physician Compare Website

iHealthBeat June,27,2013 by:Staff On Thursday, CMS added several new features to its Physician Compare website, but provider groups still have concerns about the accuracy and effectiveness of the tool, Modern Physician reports (Robeznieks, Modern Physician, 6/27). Background In December 2010, CMS launched the Physician Compare site to provide consumers with data such as a physician's name, address and Medicare participation status. In July 2012, CMS released a proposed rule outlining the next phase for its Physician Compare website, which involved posting performance data from: Read More

Brokers accepting navigators as reality

Brokers accepting navigators as reality

Healthcare Information Exchange June,26,2013 by:Gillian Roberts Kelly Fristoe is an independent agent in Wichita Falls, Texas. The outgoing president of the Texas Association of Health Underwriters has been engrained in his community selling insurance for nearly 23 years and knows the heart of his Texas towns. He can’t imagine a navigator being placed anywhere near his business area - a more rural part of Texas. “We have $8 million for navigators in Texas ... I don’t expect that there will be a navigator in communities that’s less than 50,000,” he said during an interview at the National Association of Health Underwriters meeting in Atlanta this week. Read More

EHR Incentive Program Healthcare Professionals Did You Know? Non-hospital-based physicians and other eligible professionals can obtain incentive payments of as much as $44,000 under Medicare or $63,750 under Medicaid. Under both Medicare and Medicaid, eligible hospitals may receive millions of dollars for implementing and meaningfully using certified EHR technology. About two-thirds (65 percent) of hospitals and 32 percent of office-based physicians plan to enroll in meaningful use programs by the end of 2012 in order to receive the maximum incentives, according to survey results announced Thursday morning. Fewer federal dollars will be available to hospitals and doctors that wait to adopt EHR technology, and failure to meaningfully use EHRs starting in 2015 will result in Medicare penalties. Watch this video about how to register for the EHR Incentive program. EHR Incentive Program Registration Do you need help with HIPAA and HITECH? Then download and Read our HIPAA Guide for for Doctors and Small Clinics that contains HIPAA security regulations and check lists that you can use to start your EMR network.

Refer a friend and get a $75 gift card plus $30 account credit! You know Constant Contact delivers measureable business results that drive growth. So why not tell a friend? Refer them by June 30th and if they sign up by July 20th you'll each receive $30 toward your accounts- and you'll get an additional $75 VISA gift card just for making the introduction. Customers are eligible to win up to 5 gift cards, so start referring today! See how far a FREE 60-Day Trial can take your business! Put the power of Email Marketing to work for you. Sign up for a FREE 60-Day Trial

Offer Expires: These offers are valid June 30th.

Featured Report: Mobile devices vital to education of medical students

Fierce Mobile Healthcare
Feb,17, 2013
by:+ Greg Slabodkin
The practice of medicine is changing thanks to the advent of mobile technology, and so must the curriculum of medical schools. However, because the healthcare industry at large has traditionally been slow to adopt information technology, it is not surprising that digital course offerings for medical students are not as widespread as they should be. Nevertheless, some medical schools have taken the lead in introducing courses to teach students vital technological skills that will be indispensable in future healthcare settings. The University of California at Irvine School of Medicine is one such school. Its innovative medical education program--the iMedEd Initiative--is an iPad-based curriculum, the "first in the nation to provide a completely digital, interactive learning environment that includes tablet-based learning and portable ultrasound clinical training."
Read Report

This Week's Healthcare News
Fierce EMR
Will 2013 be the 'year of the great EHR vendor switch'?
Feb,20,2013
by:+Susan B. Hall
This could be the "Year of the Great EHR Vendor Switch," according to a new Black Book Rankings survey indicating that up to 17 percent of physician practices plan to ditch their current electronic health record system. Unmet expectations in system features, implementations, deliverables and client support issues are blamed for the dissatisfaction, according to an announcement that tells of dozens, if not hundreds, of software firms underperforming badly enough to lose major market share. "The high-performance vendors that will emerge as viable past 2015 are those dedicating responsive teams to address customers' current demands," Black Book managing partner Doug Brown said of the survey of nearly 17,000 EHR users.
Read Report

Modern Physician .com
Web ratings aren't key in choosing doc: study
Feb,20,2013
by:+Andis Robeznieks
Geography and physician referral still top the Internet when it comes to patients' healthcare choices, but insurance coverage is by far the biggest driver when it comes to parents choosing a doctor for their children, according to a new national survey. “Accepts my health insurance” was rated as “very important” by 92% of the respondents in a survey commissioned by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor. Coming in a distant second was a convenient office location, which was rated as a very important decision-making factor by 65% of the respondents; followed by doctor's years of experience, 52%; recommendations from family and friends, 50%; referral by another doctor, 40%; and doctor's online ratings, 25%.
Read Report

Med City News
Medicare drug costs to fall in 2014, but donut hole widens
Feb,21, 2013
by:+Miller, Mark
CHICAGO (Reuters) - There will be good and bad news next year for seniors using Medicare's prescription drug program. Overall, enrollees can expect a year of flat or decreasing Medicare prescription drug costs, according to data released last week by the federal government. The government said Medicare's per-beneficiary drug costs fell 4 percent last year. As a result, some of the most important numbers in the program's 2014 Part D will drop by roughly the same amounts. The number that will matter most to seniors is the standard annual plan deductible. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers Medicare, said last week that it will be $310, down from $325 this year (the numbers are proposed, and still could be revised).
Read Report

Small Business Healthcare Consortium
Hello Businesses Owner,

I am writing to you because our changing health care system will have a profound effect on all of us. Now that the election is over and the Supreme Court has ruled, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not going away. It will not be repealed and it is up to us to make sure it will work for small businesses and individuals as it was intended to do.

That’s why I joined the Campaign for Better Health Care’s newly created Small Business Health Care Consortium (SBHCC). This consortium views the needs of small businesses and their employees as a top priority.

And, as a member of the Steering Committee of the SBHCC I am personally inviting you to join our network of small businesses who know that only through our collective voices that will assure that the Affordable Care Act live up to its goal of making healthcare affordable for all.

Discussions around health reform have been confusing and, sometimes, even misleading. It is the goal of the SBHCC to provide factual information about the changes that are already happening and those coming in the near future. The SBHCC discusses the benefits and opportunities of the ACA and what Illinois small businesses need to do to make sure this law will benefit them.

Many key components of the ACA are national in nature. For instance, small businesses currently providing health insurance to their employees could be eligible for a 35% tax credit. And, while employers with fewer than 50 full time employees are not required to provide health insurance, their employees can take advantage of the ACA’s benefits.

Other components will be implemented at the State level and these decisions will either enhance small businesses or provide another hurdle. One important component is that all states must implement a health insurance exchange (marketplace). These exchanges will include a rate review process with defined, easy to understand plans to consider and review side-by-side.

As small business owners we share many of the same, serious business challenges. It is my hope that you and your small business peers do want to learn more about the ACA. Let’s take this opportunity to act collectively to get control of health insurance costs and improve access to coverage. The opportunity to create positive change is now. It is about fairness and choices for small businesses. To that end I like for you to hear my own personal story about how the new healthcare law will effect me. Please go to this link at Healthcare.gov to see my story



Watch My Story

Then Join the SBHCC do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or thoughts. I may be reached at wireheadtec@gmail.com or Wirehead Technology

Sincerely,
Howard Lee
CIO
Wirehead Technology
Tel-312-286-8416