ADVANCE Perspective: HIM

HIM's Role in Aiding Emergency Response Efforts

2013-05-03T17:43:00Z

(Editor's note: This guest blog was written by Julie A. Dooling, RHIA, AHIMA Director, HIM Practice Excellence.) People are powerless to control unexpected events. What we can control is our response. When an unexpected event occurs in healthcare, instincts kick in, and professionals execute what they have learned through training. There are two types of disaster threats: natural and man-made. While we have recently experienced numerous acts of nature such as tornado, flood, and super storms, the...(read more)

2013 PharmEHR Summit Talks EHR Status and Future Opportunities

2013-04-30T14:28:00Z

(Editor's Note: This guest blog was written by Jill Hoffman, managing editor of Executive Insight .) At the third annual PharmEHR Summit April 17, leaders in the electronic health record (EHR) and pharmaceutical industries gathered to discuss the status of EHR adoption and potential collaboration between EHR and pharmaceutical companies. The summit, hosted by PDR Network and held in Philadelphia's Wannamaker Building, kicked off with opening remarks by Richard Altus, president of PDR Network. Altus...(read more)

Keeping Up and Keeping Compliant With ACA Changes

2013-04-08T18:31:00Z

(This guest blog was written by Bill Sinn, marketing director, healthcare practice, Pitney Bowes Software.) It's only three years since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Obama, and the industry is already seeing huge changes. For instance, the U.S. has expanded the number of citizens receiving preventative care, increased Medicaid payments for primary care doctors, and improved the coordination and quality of patient care by bundling payments. More change is still forthcoming....(read more)

Health IT Outsourcing Enabled by the New Omnibus HIPAA Rule

2013-04-03T11:23:00Z

(Editor's Note: This guest blog was written by Peter Tippett, MD, PhD, chief medical officer and vice president of the Innovation Incubator, Verizon.) The long-awaited Final Rule implementing HITECH Act amendments to HIPAA simplifies outsourcing in health IT by requiring business associates to safeguard protected health information in the same manner as covered entities. Nearly three years after proposing regulatory amendments to the HIPAA privacy and security rules, the Department of Health and...(read more)

Finding a Job in Healthcare Just Got Easier

2013-04-02T20:16:00Z

In a competitive job market you need an edge. ADVANCE has launched a new job board with tools and features that can help you stay a step ahead of those using standard search tools. ADVANCE has been in the healthcare employment business for almost 30 years giving us a loyal client base. When top healthcare employers have a tough position to fill, they turn to ADVANCE . We have an expertise in what healthcare employers are looking for. And now, we have enhanced tools to get your information in front...(read more)

Should A/R be Payer-Centric or Denial-Centric?

2013-04-01T18:13:00Z

(Editor's Note: This guest blog was written by Sondra Bruderer, MHA) If you were to walk into almost any healthcare organization's business office, you would probably find that staff and Accounts Receivables (A/R) follow the traditional payer-centric model. There is typically the "Government Team" (Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare), the "Commercial Team" (Blues, UHC and Aetna), the "Self Pay Team," and other supporting players that do not discriminate by payer (i.e., Payment Posting). Individuals within...(read more)

Future HIM Professional Builds Connections, Advocates at AHIMA Hill Day 2013

2013-03-28T16:15:00Z

(This guest blog was written by Kayla M. Zirbes of The College of Saint Scholastica. Zirbes is an AHIMA student advisory council member and AHIMA Hill Day 2013 participant.) As a member of the American Health Information Management Association's Student Advisory Council (SAC), I have benefited from many unique opportunities to become active within the health information management profession. On March 19, I was able to advocate at Hill Day in Washington, D.C., for RAC audits, unique patient identifiers,...(read more)

Cloud Computing Meets HIPAA Omnibus: A Provider Checklist

2013-03-15T14:25:00Z

(Editor's Note: This guest blog was written by Frankie Rios, CISSP, VP information security and compliance, GNAX) Cloud computing and storage is an undeniable migration path and IT strategy. Overall spending on cloud technology is expected to reach an estimated $150 billion annually by 2014, according to a recent Gartner Group study. And within healthcare, 35 percent of health IT professionals surveyed said their organization was implementing or maintaining cloud computing in 2012, up from 30 percent...(read more)

Care Coordination: Core Competency for Accountable Care

2013-03-14T18:47:00Z

(Editor's note: This guest blog was written by Jordan Battani, managing director of CSC's Global Institute for Emerging Healthcare Practices) Healthcare reform in the U.S. is rapidly moving in the direction of making providers more accountable for both cost and quality performance. The term "accountable care" is used to describe the new environment. Groups of providers assume responsibility for care across the continuum with reimbursement tied to quality and cost performance. An organized, systematic...(read more)

The End of the Line: Does the Metric for Transcription Billing Need to Change?

2013-03-12T16:18:00Z

(Editor’s note: This guest blog was written by Russ Reese, AS, a development manager for M*Modal.) Fifty years ago, when a transcriber sat at a typewriter and created a document from a blank sheet of paper, it made perfect sense to charge for that service by the line. With the advent of the PC, transcribers have been able to create shortcuts and gain efficiencies that weren't possible with a typewriter. We use macros, text expanders, wizards, pre-defined forms, templates, and even speech recognition...(read more)

HIMSS 2013: Hackers Want Your Stuff

2013-03-06T11:47:00Z

( This guest blog was written from HIMSS 2013 by Adrianne O'Brien of Executive Insight.) As hospitals strive for increased patient engagement to improve outcomes and reduce readmissions, that engagement means more IT solutions, which means more opportunity for data breaches. At the HIMSS conference on March 5, David Kennedy of Trusted SEC launched his "Hacking Your Life" session with sobering stats. In 2012, there were 327 breaches in the medical industry. The medical field is more likely to get...(read more)

HIMSS Leadership Session: Shopping for a New EHR

2013-03-06T11:36:00Z

(This guest blog was written from HIMSS 2013 by Adrianne O'Brien of Executive Insight .) We're blogging from the annual HIMSS conference in New Orleans! A group of healthcare/hospital CIOs navigated the miles of exhibit space at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and the 32,718 registered attendees to present a panel discussion on the findings of the 24th annual leadership survey. An interesting part of the discussion was about EHRs. About 74 percent of hospitals, the panel was asked, are shopping...(read more)

HIMSS 2013: Tips and Can't Miss Events From a Veteran Attendee

2013-02-08T15:46:00Z

In anticipation of the HIMSS 2013 Annual Conference and Exhibition to be held March 3 to 7 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, ADVANCE interviewed Bonnie Cassidy, MPA, RHIA, FAHIMA, FHIMSS, senior director of HIM Innovation at Nuance and AHIMA approved ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer. Cassidy spent the majority of her career on the consulting side and now is focused on ICD-10 and computer-assisted coding. She shared her enthusiasm for HIMSS' annual convention, which offers a multitude of...(read more)

OIG to CMS: ‘Trust, but Verify'

2012-12-27T20:34:00Z

(Editor's Note: This guest blog was written by Chris Giancola, principal at CSC Healthcare Group.) In November, the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General released an early assessment of the oversight of the national electronic health records adoption incentive program, more formally known as the meaningful use of certified health information technology within the HITECH section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In its assessment, the OIG took stock of how...(read more)

EHR/HIE Interoperability: How Do We Get There?

2012-11-21T21:27:00Z

(Editor's Note: This guest blog was written by Alisa Ray, executive director, CCHIT.) The advent of health information exchanges (HIE) has added a new level of complexity to the challenges facing both healthcare providers and health information management professionals. Even as we work to establish interoperability among EHRs within individual health systems, we also must facilitate interoperability among myriad EHR systems and HIEs. High costs, technical differences, and long wait times for interface...(read more)