You need not be tethered to the office due to HIPAA

Spending time with family and living life should not be sacrificed to HIPAA. That is, you can use your cell phone to communicate with your patients. And hopefully, you will from some scenic places, or while spending some quality family time.

HIPAA does not restrict you communications to encrypted emails, and landlines.

But you do have the continued obligations to implement technical, physical and administrative safeguards in using your cellphone as you do any other communication device.

So, if you're going to use your cell phone, be smart and safe about it.

Make sure your cell phone is password protected if it has patient information on it. This is especially true if your phone is linked to your EHR and practice management electronic systems.  If you’re going to end emails, you have to have the same encryption safeguards that you do with your office systems.

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Then makes sure you take steps to secure the phone physically. That has the locator functionally on in case you lose it. Control who you let use your phone. That is, don’t pass it to your teenager as an amusement device, or to call them friends.

And when you do speak with patients, its like the elevator at the hospitals – be cognizant of where you are when you do speak. Don’t carry on the call in a public place, find a corner or walk away from the crowd. And when speaking is cognizant of what you say, trying to avoid saying anything that could identify the patient, or publicly share sensitive personal health information.

A good practice is to tell your caller upfront that you are on a cell phone and ask if it is ok to continue the conversation, or if they would prefer to be re-contacted when you can get to a landline or more secure location. This lets them know where you are and lets them take part in the responsibility for the call.

Another responsibility that does not change is the obligation to document. So, check out the recording features of your phone, again, password protection is a must. After the call, record a simple reminder note that the call occurred, when, any medical advice is given, and on what basis you make it. And if you are committing to calling in a prescription, make sure you record it and call it in. You need not dictate a full not, that can wait till later, but you want enough to know what to enter into the patient’s medical record when you do.

So, get out of the office without being out of patient contact. Far better, of course, is if you have coverage so you can get out of the office and be out of patient contact for at least a little while.

Types of Denials - How to Get Paid

Claim denied and some reason code is given. Now you have to research what it means and what to do about it.  In too many cases, office staff puts these aside to work on later, and then that put aside, become pushed aside for other priorities, and becomes denied for lack of timely appeal.  Revenue loss.

Denials are very different from rejections, and staff needs to be able to read an understand the Explanation of Benefits (EOB) messages.  Rejections are errors in the data that was submitted, correct it, re-submit it and move on.  Practices should never let rejections become denials because they are not fixed and resubmitted timely.

Denials are another matter completely.  Here the payer is saying no – we won’t pay.

There are two basic reasons for denial – failure of the patient to be eligible for the services you provided, and failure of you to be authorized to provide the service that you provided.  These can only be fixed by an appeal.

Read More: Are you looking to Switching EHR Vendors? CureMD will help you choose the best emr for your specialty-specific or muti specialty practice

Denials for lack of patient eligibility means that the health plan is saying, not my responsibility. The problem is that you do not know what the plan is relying on when they say that because you only relied on the information that the patient gave you at time of service.  And here is the rub.  You may have even verified eligibility at the time of service, but low and behold, now they are saying that the patient was not eligible.  This is a fight you can’t win, and appealing will only result in further denials.

This is a problem you have to make the patients.  Bill them, pass on a copy of the denial and let them fight with their insurance company.  Hold them responsible, and if you have planned for such an event, you have taken a contingent credit card authorization to bill the card just for this type of possibility.  Bill the card, and your done.  Now if the insurance company relents based on the patient arguing with them, and you do get paid, promptly issue a credit to their card.  And be sure to keep the patient in the loop; advise them of the denial and the credit card billing and if paid, advise them of the credit being issued.

Denials for lack of authorization run the gambit of the lack of a referral for the procedure, to a requirement that you are “accredited” or certified” to provide a certain procedure or service.

Your office should build a matrix of all the plans that you participate with, and which of those plans, or products of those plans require pre-authorizations, referrals, or accreditations/certifications. And if you are adding a new service, especially a piece of technology, don’t believe the salesman that tells you that you will get paid by everyone for using it.  Make sure you verify with the health plans directly. (Or better yet, make the salesman guarantee his words with consequences)

If you are a specialist then there is a likelihood that at least some of your pay sources will require prior authorizations or referrals.  Best to know beforehand.  And never let the patient dismiss your request for a referral with the promise that they will get it later.  Get it before services are rendered.  Two ways (1) invite them to all their primary care physicians and ask that it be immediately faxed, and (2) invite them to sign a waiver that if they do not get the referral, or it is invalid, or if they claim it is not needed, they will take personal financial responsibility and pay the bill, in full.  And get that contingent credit card.

If your practice includes ancillary technology, such as imaging services, be sure to verify that if you provide them to your patients they will be covered by the payers.  Imaging services, in particular, are increasingly coming under the egis of specifically contracted subnetworks, and if allowed by practitioners, only if they are “accredited or certified” to provide.  

And always monitor your denials.  Not only do you want to appeal anything where the payer has its facts wrong, you want to bill out to the patient when appropriate, you also want to learn from one denial to avoid it reoccurrence.  Too many offices only react after hundreds, or perhaps thousands of dollars are lost to the same denial reason, repeated and repeated.

Benchmarking Your Practice

So how is your practice doing?  A simple question, but to answer you have to ask a question; compared to what?  Well, let’s compare it with some recent information that MAGMA published about physician-owned vs hospital-owned medical practices.  Some striking differences.  For almost every benchmark the physician-owned practice performed better than the hospital owned practice. 

From MGMAs Data Drive 2017 Cost and Revenue

• Median total gross charges $1,876,174 $1,208,258
• Median adjusted FFS charges $1,033,830 $588,007
• Median Total A/R per FTE physician $169,281 $111,514
• Median days adjusted FFS in A/R 62.19 66.45
• Median gross FFS collection percent 53.90% 46.90%
• Median adjusted FFS collection percent 99.02% 96.75%
• Median bad debt due to FFS activity $19,612 $21,875

Data such as this can be used to benchmark your own practice, and answer the question, how’s your practice doing? 

Start with adjusted gross charges, which is what your charges are after adjusting for contractual allowances, you might even call this your actual billings.  How is the performance of the physicians in your practice in comparison?  This is a measure of your physician performance, the volume, and complexity of the patients seen.

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If your charges are less than the benchmark, you might want to take a look at the services you provide and determine if you are capturing all charges from your medical records.  An integrated EHR-PMS system should sweep the services form the medical record to the billings to capture everything.  Some studies say that upwards of 7% of all services performed and documented in the medical record are not transferred to billing.  

This is also a measure of how busy your physicians are.  How is their schedule?  Gaps in the appointment book mean lost revenue.  Are the gaps no-shows, or lost volume?  

From here the benchmarks are measures of your office staff performance.
Accounts receivable is money that has been billed but remains outstanding.  What is happening in your practice?  Ideally, you should be billing daily so that cash flow is maximized.  And your office should be aggressively pursuing claims with insurance companies older than 30 days since most states have regulations that call for physician claims to be acted on within 30 days of receipt by the insurance company.

The next big issue in accounts receivable is patient collections.  Balances due from patients.  What is your policy on collecting at the time of service?  Do you take credit cards as a contingent payment to be charged when the insurance company settles and advises the balance due?  If not, consider.  Otherwise, you will need to work on your collection practices at the front desk.

Private physician-owned practices are doing a better job in collecting funds due with 99% of FFS payments being collected.  How are you doing in comparison?
And when it comes to the ultimate bad debt, those charges that you are unable to collect, less than $20,000 a year is the benchmark.  Better still, if you are requiring a contingent credit card, you can often bring that balance even lower.

No benchmark is perfect for your practice, but if you don’t have anything to compare with you really don’t have a handle on your own performance, and where there are opportunities for improvement.

How to Increase Your Practice Income through Referrals

Patients follow your advice for continued medical care needs.  Its not just anecdotal information any longer. The National Bureau of Economic Research studies the impact of physician recommendations, price and geography on a patient’s choice of provider, and their conclusion – what you say matters.

Overwhelmingly, patients sought services from the providers, physician, hospital, ancillary, based on the recommendation of their physician irrespective of price, or geographic differential.  Transparency, the doctor next door, the big bill board, the advertising, the bottom line is that patient’s trust their physician.  While the reality is that not everyone will follow your recommendations, but the majority will.

Read More: How CancerLinQ Improving Physicians Performance

This means you have power of the purse, power to influence the economics of others.

The only way that you can use this information is to understand what your referral pattern means to others.  You probably already know what it means to clinical labs that grovel (and at times to too far) in seeking your specimens, but have you thought about your impact on others? The specialist, the hospital?

The best way to understand your role in others income is to measure it, that is estimate it.  Turn to your EHR/PMS to see what reports it is capable of running.  If your system can, take a periodic run of your referrals, and where they go.  Not its not going to be in your system, but you can estimate the economic value of your referrals in a crude way, by assigning a dollar value to an office visit and if to a proceduralist, an estimated value of their work, surgery, colonoscopy, etc.  Need a data source, you google Fair Health and see what the rates are on the average for these services. For hospitalizations, just use the average of $10,000, which is the average for a hospital stay in the US.

The value of this information is to understand the economic power that you and your referral pattern command.  Not that its your money, but your decisions mean income to others.

Now with this information consider if the revenue you are producing for others is being respected by them. 

For example, if you continually make referrals to Dr X and he never sends you a consultation report, then perhaps for the betterment of your patients, you should consider another physician to receive your largesse. Similarly, if there is a receiver of the bulk of your referrals, that makes your life more difficult by not taking patients with insurance A, again consider a conversation about it with them, and after they balk at accommodating your patients, slip into the conversation the estimated value of your referrals, if not the dollars the number of cases referred. A reminder may be even necessary to the physician when their office staff won’t accommodate a patient of yours that is in more immediate need of their services.

Specialists, with few exceptions (Allergy, dermatology ophthalmology) are largely in the wholesale business, that is their business is based on referrals, from you and from other referral sources.  While the specialist may command a certain higher stature by virtue of their specialty, they are dependent on your referral for survival.  This means that you have the clout to impact their responsiveness to you and your patients. 

Don’t be afraid to use it.

Retroactive recoveries – you do have protections

There is little more infuriating for a physician than to have provided services, in good faith, billed the patient’s insurance company, and gotten paid for those services to now receive a letter claiming that the payment was in error, and demanding its return.  The physician is left to chase the patient or swallow the loss.  And these letters come out of the blue and may come months, even years after services were rendered and paid.

If you are practicing in New York, or in any state with regulatory protections there is an end to this madness.  In New York physician rights when it comes to insurance companies and HMOs can be found In Insurance law section 3217-b, 3224-a, 4325, 4803 and Public Health law sections 4403, 4406-c, and 4406-d.

When it comes to those recovery demands, the first thing to look at is the date of payment you received on the claim.  The regulations prohibit recoveries more than 24 months after the date you received payment.

This is important to know because as an executive of United once said when challenged why they were sending letters seeking recoveries that were older than 24 months, “Just because we can’t offset the claims, does not mean that we cannot ask for the money back.  Physicians are expected to know their contract and the regulations”.  In other words, there is nothing that stops a payer form asking for the money back, and if you do not know this regulation, you or your staff may be intimidated by the official-sounding letter into dashing off a payment to the insurer.

Read More About: CIO Review Magazine Declares CureMD a Most Promising Healthcare

In addition, these official letters even when within the recovery window, cannot be mysterious. Under NYS regulation, other than the recovery of duplicative payments, HMOs and insurance companies must give physician 30 days’ notice before engaging in overpayment recovery efforts – like off-setting current claims for the alleged overpayment.  And the letters must include the patient’s name, service date, payment amount, the proposed adjustment, and a reasonably specific explanation of the proposed adjustment.  If the recovery demand does not include the foregoing, send back their letter with a cover letter that says that you dispute this recovery pending the receipt of information consistent with NYS regulations.  And if they press on without responding, send their letter as a complaint to the NYS Department of Financial Services (NYS Insurance Department) or the applicable state regulatory agency.

This will not only get the regulators to ask the plan to explain but will cost the plan money to respond to the regulators, always a good thing.

Now most letters will be about another payer being primary.  Don’t fight it, just bill the primary insurance company, which they should be identifying, and send back to the requesting plan a letter that you have billed the alleged primary and will repay them when and if the alleged primary makes payment.  When that insurer pays, refund the requesting company.  If they deny, just send the requestor a copay of the denial, with a note that they are responsible. (It's not your job to debate insurance coverage).

If the recovery demand is for any other reason, check out their reasoning.  If they are right, then refund, if they are questionable, or you can’t determine from their letter, send back a letter saying you dispute their request until you see…..whatever information you need to confirm the correctness of their representation.

One little problem with all of the above is that it does not apply to governmental programs, or to self-insured plans.  However, you will not readily know if the recovery is on behalf of a self-insured plan, so follow the same guidance.  Even if you end up owing the money, better to make the plan work for the money, rather than readily surrender your earned dollars.

Quickly evaluate an EHR

Quickly and easily evaluate an EHR, any Electronic Health Record, by asking how it supports you with the following functionality. Quickly get focused on what matters and use the expertise of others to assess the system.

Interoperability:  

Does it share well with others?  In today’s practice environment, no man (or woman) is an island.  They can’t be for the sake of their own practice, and for the care of their patients.  Data, which is information for billing and clinical care must be able to flow back and forth between an increasing number of parties.  

Can the EHR share with such diverse systems as Health Information Exchanges (HIE), pharmacies, payers, radiology/imaging services, referring physician, cancer and immunization registries, as well as other disease state registries, hospital networks, as well as the electronic devices increasingly being added to an office?

Today’s EHR must be interoperable, able to share two ways with others. The world of healthcare treatment and reimbursement is increasingly interdependent, and if you are not part of this sharing world with data, you will not only lose out on patient information that could impact the care you render, but also be excluded from even participating in some of the new, and increasingly complex reimbursed offerings.

Ease of use: 

Technology can be hard.  How easy is it to actually use? Does the Electronic Health Record allow for customization of your template for documenting a patient visit, or do you have to twist yourself into a pretzel to document? How flexible is it to follow your usual patient flow, enabling you to truly personalize your operations?

Optimization of your workflow:  

While mirroring your patient flow may be necessary for comfort in transitioning to a system, dashboards that let you monitor your operation and reporting capabilities are necessary to allow you improve your practice. Doing is the status quo, improving is the way to make your practice a success. If an EHR does not contribute to practice improvement across its entire operation, from productivity to revenue to improving the quality of the services you provide, the EHR is not contributing to making yours a better practice.

Patient engagement: 

How does the Electronic Health Record enable you to engage patients? Yes, a patient portal, but what does it allow you to do with your patients that increases satisfaction, service quality and reduce your operating costs?  

Needed is the ability of your patients to securely request appointments and refills online, receive test results as they become available, utilize educational material and update their health status, history, demographics, and insurance information while subscribing to valuable electronic tools and services.

KLAS Rating: 

KLAS Research is an accurate, honest and impartial research on the software and services used by providers and payers worldwide. 

Their extensive research and evaluation process provides an objective review of EHRs and related software. 

You need to ask; “How does KLAS rank you?” to every EHR you might be considering.  The extensiveness of KLAS ranking which takes into consideration actual user experiences is in-depth due diligence. 

Choose the EHR that is right for you, but make sure it is highly ranked by KLAS at a minimum.

All About MIPS: How to Prepare for this Reporting Period

Are you prepared for MIPS? As the deadline to collect data is approaching, it is time for providers to get serious about documentation to avoid penalties. MIPS reporting can be stressful, confusing, and haphazard if you are not prepared. However, in order to avoid penalties and maximize incentives, it is important to assess how you have fared. While you may require special assistance in the form of CureMD’s MIPS consultancy services to properly equip you with a penalty protection plan and help you understand how to maximize your returns, CureMD can simplify the technicalities for you. Enhance your understanding of eligibility, scoring, performance thresholds, and alternative payment models here. Get More Information on MIPS Reporting 2017

11 INDICATORS YOU NEED A NEW EHR

Replacing your EHR is a crucial process and we get it. Not only has the EHR been with your practice for a long time, emotional attachment plays a role too. However there’s only so much you can compromise; in terms of your practice and patient care. Here’s a list of signs you should be looking out for especially if you take pride in providing efficient care throughout the year. Whether it’s decreased functionality, increased overall costs or bad customer support, we’ve got all the basic signs indicating you need to replace your existing EHR. Read more

5 WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM EHR OUTBREAK

Out-dated EHR bringing your practice down? Or maybe just thinking of switching your practice management software? Look no further. Brining you a basic, 5-step guide to buying the right EHR, this info-graphic is bound to help you choose better and shop smarter. Remember, 59% more buyers are replacing existing EHR Software this year and you most definitely can’t afford staying behind in the race. Analyze, research, consult and go for it! Get the EHR your practice deserves and spend time managing your patients, and not the software. Happy shopping this year! Read more

Preparing for the Conclusion of ICD-10 Grace Period

Within CureMD the diagnosis search box now recognizes provider specific abbreviations and aliases for diseases. You can now use common terms or abbreviations to describe a clinical condition and the system will bring forth the desired ICD-10 code. Learn more information here.. http://bit.ly/2evOPLg

CureMD Wins 2 Best in KLAS awards

CureMD, a leading Health IT Solution provider, surpasses past winners to secure top place.

CureMD, the innovative provider of Health IT systems and services made headlines yesterday by topping the 2015/2016 Best in KLAS: Software & Services Awards for both Best EMR and Practice Management for 1-10 physician practices (i).

The company debuted on the KLAS list in 2012 and since then has gone from strength to strength beating all other vendors with its user friendly products that are backed by a passionate service culture.

Healthcare organizations seeking to optimize operations through cloud based, specialty focused EMR and Practice Management are choosing CureMD to support the evolving clinical and administrative challenges of today’s care delivery enterprises. Its All-in-One integrated product offering and everything in-house business model has brought exceptional value and affordability to medical practices of all sizes. The company is now committed to make seamless interoperability a reality for patients and providers by adopting enhanced data sharing practices for an informed and empowered care delivery system. Read more here

Top 3 EHR vendors To Partner With in 2016

EHRs have become quite a common phenomenon in the American healthcare industry. In 2015, 78% of office-based physicians use an EHR system while 59% want to switch their current EHR provider. Moving forward in 2016, CureMD, eClinicalWorks, and Practice Fusion are the top three EHR vendors. CureMD offers one of the most comprehensive cloud platforms as an EHR vendor with continuous support and problem resolution. eClinicalWorks has the second highest market share in the American market at 10.2% as it provides solutions to practices of multiple sizes. Practice Fusion specifically caters to smaller practices and is MU, ICD-10, and PQRS compliant. Read more

A Real Case for the Return on Investment of EHR Implementation

If there is one thing that there is no shortage of during the EHR implementation transition, it is cynicism. Much of this negativity is certainly warranted when providers are running into legitimate budgetary and staffing problems, but an even larger portion of the medical community seems to view speaking skeptically as a personal hobby. Perhaps this devout skepticism comes from a fear of change, but even more likely is that they think that the evidence for EHR ROI (return on investment) simply is not there.

Well, we have news for them: EHR ROI is real, and it is not isolated to just a few anomalies. There have been multiple studies confirming that some provider organizations benefited greatly from EHR implementation.

While we must acknowledge the real struggles providers are facing, we must also recognize collectively as a community that negative EHR implementation outcomes are not inevitable. To stir in this dose of much-needed positivity, here are a few examples of providers that genuinely saw EHR ROI within a reasonable time frame:

Reliant Medical Group

Hailing from Worcester, Mass. but with facilities throughout Central Mass., Reliant Medical Group was an early adopter of EHR Software Systems. After shelling out an astounding $24 million in overall costs, the organization says that it is already seeing tangible financial and administrative benefits.

Foremost, the more precise coding and documentation capabilities of EHR are credited with increasing their Medicare Advantage reimbursements by $2 million annually. They also saw a huge surge in their compliance rate for Medicare Advantage patients who had chronic kidney disease diagnoses. Within a three-year period, compliance for these patients increased from 20 percent to a whopping 80 percent.

Additionally, the time and cost of transcribing dictation has fallen significantly for Reliant’s centers — a full 63 percent, to be exact.

Reliant’s Larry Garber even touted that EHRs successfully made good on their promise to reduce medical mistakes. Looking specifically at his radiology departments, there was a consistent problem with the wrong tests being ordered. After customizing a one-click feature that would reveal the specifics of every test ordered, radiologists could vet the pending test requests and confirm or correct them before they were scheduled.

In total, the percentage of radiology tests requiring expensive ordering changes post-scheduling declined from 12 percent to four percent. This reduction saved both patients and providers resources, especially the radiologists who had more time to perform tests that were genuinely needed.

Small Practice EHR Wins

While not every provider has the budget to lay down a cool $24 mil on the table for EHR, many smaller pilot clinics were still able to budget for their EHR implementation properly and see some EHR ROI within a few years.

Here are some five-year case studies courtesy of Providers Edge:

●       OB/GYN of West Michigan saw a 65 percent return on investment after cutting six full-time-equivalent staff positions in transcription and nursing as a result of increased efficiency.

●       Nash OB-GYN Associates, hailing from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, saw a huge 71 percent reduction in both transcription and supplies costs.

●       Lakewood Family Medicine of Holland, Michigan enjoyed a 50 percent EHR ROI, with savings of $100,000 per year on reduced transcription costs alone. Administrator Beth Zandra even fully-endorsed the decision, saying that, “There’s no way my physicians would go back to paper medical records.”

●       One Dr. Jack Dekkinga had an unusually-glowing case for EHR ROI. While his costs for transcriptions and supplies fell just like the other study participants, his receipts also grew by 32 percent coupled with an 18 percent increase in total patient encounters. His small practice was able to achieve an astounding 240 percent ROI, allowing him to pay for the costs of his EHR system in just over five months.

Getting Realistic About EHR ROI

Not every provider organization will see the storybook gains described above, but they will also likely not endure the catastrophic losses bandied about by devout naysayers. The real point is to illustrate that losses are not inevitable.

In fact, one of the most comprehensive studies on the subject of EHR implementation found that small practices would recoup their losses after two and a half years, on average. After that, they could expect incremental gains in the years to come. While this timeline may seem drawn out for some, providers must come to grips that the expectations of EHR implementation are coupled to the promise of better efficiency and better patient care. Tangible, cash results thus may pale in comparison to the revitalized landscape that EHR promises in the long run.

If such idealism is not enough to float your boat, at least take comfort in the fact that significant Medicaid incentives can be had if you implement EHR sometime next year. Between incentive programs like these and the potential gains evangelized by those above, now is the time to create a serious EHR implementation strategy and adjust to what will inevitably color the future of modern medicine.

Must Read about: 4 Practical Ways EHRs Use Real Time Analysis to Help Providers and Patients

Does an iPad EHR actually save time?

The implementation of Electronic Health Records in the US was a golden step forward in the healthcare industry. Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers were able to document their data more effectively and consequently reduce the number of errors made in patient charts and claims. According to a survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2011, nearly 55% of physicians had adopted EHR systems for their practices. Almost 74% of the physicians surveyed admitted that EHRs had improved the efficiency of their medical practices.

However, ever since the CMS brought forward its regulations regarding detailed documentation and penalties for documentation and billing errors, entering patient data on a desktop screen became a huge hassle. Many physicians and nurses now spend more time on patient documentation than on the patient himself. Another problem faced by healthcare providers is that they have to record patient data and situations from time to time, and on paper because let’s admit it; they can’t carry a desktop computer with them everywhere. Hence a lot of precious patient time is consumed on double documentation; first on paper and then on the desktop EHR.

EHR vendors and healthIT experts came up with an alternative solution for these problems; simply integrate EHRs with other portable technology gadgets. The most selling EHR among these portable devices is the iPad EHR, because it both easy to use and does not require physicians to stay seated on their desks to document patient data. Here are some interesting features of iPad EHRs that Help Reduce the Documentation Time:
1. Charting on the go
Unlike computers, iPad’s don’t confine physicians to their desks in order to record patient data. Nor are nurses required to carry around heavy paper files and records to document the patient’s vitals and other treatment conditions. Physicians and clinical staff can now enter and store patient information on their iPads; and all while looking at the patient.

2. Simplified documentationDocumentation had always been a time consuming task for providers. The iPad EHR is a more simplified version of desktop EHR. According to a survey, documentation and charting time reductions of 23% were reported by physicians who had shifted to the iPad EHR.

3. Lab Ordering and Prescribing
Another recent advanced feature available in some iPad EHRs is the ease of Lab ordering and medicine prescribing. Physicians can now select a pharmacy or lab in their desired location and send lab orders or prescriptions without leaving their offices. They can also receive lab results on their iPad, which are then shared with the patient.


The iPad EHR has become the new trend that is Reshaping Medical Practice Workflows in the healthIT industry. Kelly Rakowski, managing director health provider practice at Accenture, stated that she has seen physicians enhance productivity by using iPad EHRs because of the ease with which they facilitate information sharing. The results of another survey of iPad EHR users concluded that iPad EHRs increase operational efficiency of medical practices by 30% and improve quality of care by 16%. These analytics prove that iPad EHRs are the perfect alternative solution for modern medical practices that are facing productivity loss because of reduced patient care time.

read more about: Top Rated iPad EHR – MU Certified iPad EHR                                    

Does a medical billing software actually enhance efficiency?

Gone are the days when providers used paper for almost everything, be it prescribing medicine, making notes, mentioning patient symptoms, and billing the patients. With EHR technology becoming more and more popular among providers in the US, a lot of vendors have started integrating Practice Management Software to expedite medical billing in their practices.

Although providers have found EHRs to be very useful for their practices; some of them are still hesitant towards using medical billing software. The reason could be that several medical billing tools are quite complex and costly for practices to handle. Some practices still prefer manual documentation over electronic, in order to protect data from being hacked, stolen or even used for corrupt purposes. After all, the chances of data being accessed by unauthorized individuals are higher in electronic data as compared to paper based data.

However providers must realize that medical billing software are bringing about a new change in the healthcare industry. Now the rate of claims being denied or delayed are decreasing significantly. According to Reviews, electronic medical billing has successfully reduced error per claim ratio with latest technology like Claim Scrubber. Here are some common features of medical billing software that can contribute a lot to increasing practice efficiency:

1.       Access to Patient information

Medical billing software has enabled physicians to run background checks on patients’ medical and insurance history. Now it’s easier to access patient information from anywhere. Not only does this speed up the billing process but also helps practices avoid claim errors.

2.       Reducing claim denials

The biggest problem troubling medical practices is the increase in their claim denial rates. While dealing with several claims directed towards different insurances at a time, mistakes are inevitable. However, with recent upgrades brought by medical billing technology, it has become easier to identify such errors and correct them before sending out the claims. This way more than 90% claims pass through submission in the first go.

3.       Increase in cash flow

Another change observed in practices that have adapted to electronic medical billing is the increase in their cashflows. Medical billing software not only increases the rate of claim submissions, but also helps providers reclaim their fee early by reducing payment time. Some medical billing software even have the capability to auto-generate modifications through which providers can follow up on their claims via regular reports and tracking.

For small practices that have not yet adapted to electronic medical billing because of the pricey and complex software, Outsourcing Medical Billing to a medical billing company is another appropriate solution for improving practice performance.

Rad more: Top reasons to Outsource Medical Billing

Does an Oncology EHR help optimize physician workflows?

Oncology has a unique set of terms and protocols as compared to other medical specialties. The intensive data and procedures involved in oncology list it among the most complex medical specialties. Therefore it is reasonable to understand why oncologists dislike using a generic EHR that doesn’t suit their practice. EHR vendors have tried coming up with an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system that can cater to oncology practices, but many have failed in doing so. However few have succeeded in either modifying their generic EHR to accommodate to specific oncology requirements or redesigning an EHR solely for oncology practices.

Oncologists expressed the urgent need for EHRs that could help them with more accurate documentation and safe-keeping of patient data, ordering and administration of chemotherapy drugs, clinical trials etc. The most useful features in an Oncology EHR that can drive outcomes, productivity and financial growth, are as follows:

1.       Chemotherapy automation:

 An Oncology-specific EHR simplifies chemotherapy automation for oncologists. Orders can now be delivered electronically and oncologists no longer need to manually calculate the amount of dosage to give to their patients. The automated dosing and scheduling function in these EHRs helps prevent dosage calculation errors.

2.       Customized templates and digital imaging

The availability of customized templates for various tumor-stages assist oncologists in the creation of structured notes. Many EHRs also have the feature to capture, scan and attach clinical images, lab tests and photographs directly into the patient chart, or through an integrated PACS. Additionally, these notes and images can be emailed or faxed to the referring physicians.

3.       Patient portal:

Patients need to be updated about changes in their condition from time to time. The patient portal facilitates patients in receiving test results as soon as they become available, and it also helps in keeping tabs on their health status. Moreover, some EHRs help patients in requesting appointments and refills online.

The Oncology EHR assists oncologists in improving their practice workflows by offering features including cancer mapping and stage identification, treatment recommendations, clinical trial support etc. However it is necessary for oncologists to recognize which EHR will be suitable to meet the needs of their specialty or subspecialty before purchasing any.

Read more: We did it again! CureMD ranks 3rd in the Top 20 most Popular EHRs.

Prepare yourselves: Less than 300 days to ICD-10

This time next year, practices not using the ICD-10 code set for their billing will not receive a dollar for their services. The CMS has announced September 30, 2015 as the date until which the ICD-9 diagnosis codes will be used. The very next day, on October 1, every practice across the nation will need to use ICD-10 codes if they want to get paid.

Yes the changes will be huge, as the current ICD-9 code set contains roughly 13,000 outpatient diagnostic codes while ICD-10 has around 68,000. Yes, the codes will become more complex and detailed (with more characters and subdivisions), and physicians will need to learn them all over again.

However, technology has resulted in this alteration, and technology will aide in the adoption; EHR vendors will eventually come up with quick and efficient conversion, mapping and support tools so that providers can switch to the new codes with ease.

Keeping this aside, there’s still a lot you need to do. First of all, immediately get in touch with your EHR vendor and inquire as to his ICD-10 readiness. This is because no matter how prepared you are, if you EHR vendor isn’t ready; your efforts will go down the drain.

Get a new, ICD-10 ready Electronic Health Records (EHR) now rather than later if that’s the case. Most EHR Vendors will also give you an overview of the conversion process, and teach you more via a paid consultation. Next, get in touch with your clearinghouses, billing company, and insurance carriers to check on their status; you’ll get more advice as to getting started from these sources too.

The next step is to establish how your documentation, e-Superbills and reporting will change when ICD-10 is applied. Consult the above-mentioned sources, the internet, government support sources and other providers determine this.

When you’re done with this, your staff needs to be made aware of how their roles will change, and provide them with the required training for ICD-10. This will ensure a very smooth conversion, and keep disruptions to your practice workflows at a minimum.

Conduct both internal and external testing at least a couple of months before October to see how well you’ve adopted to the workflow changes, and so you can make alterations to bridge your shortcomings before the October date.

The time to ICD-10 is decreasing, so make sure that you’re ready before October 2015 to prevent the loss of revenue and the disruption of workflows at your practice. 

Read more about: How will my claim submission process change with ICD-10?

CureMD Healthcare: How to choose the best Medical Billing Vendor for ...

CureMD Healthcare: How to choose the best Medical Billing Vendor for ...: Deciding to switch from in-house to out-house Medical Billing Service is a step that has future implications for your practice growth and ...

How to choose the best Medical Billing Vendor for your practice?

Deciding to switch from in-house to out-house Medical Billing Service is a step that has future implications for your practice growth and revenue. There are certain aspects that you consider before making the switch, which include the capacity of your practice to maintain an in-house billing department and readiness to adopt ICD-10 among others.

Once you decide to switch to the other side of the spectrum, you have to choose the Medical Billing Vendor that can help you maximize your revenue and increase cash flow. This may not be an easy task, as there is plethora of medical billing companies ready to sell you their services. So, how do you pick the one medical billing vendor that will meet all your billing needs?

The best billing vendor will be able to reduce your receivables and decline rate, and increase your insurance payments. Your medical billing vendor should:

•  Reduce your claim denial rate. The vendor that has an in-house clearinghouse will be able to scrub your claims properly before sending them to the insurance company, thus, reducing the chances of denials or rejection.
•  Save you money after outsourcing. Your vendor should be able to appoint you a dedicated billing agent, who will look after all your billing needs and keep you updated.
•  Be ready to adopt ICD-10 when it is implemented. Their billers should be adept in the new, complex coding system, which is essential for successful processing of claims.
• Be HIPAA Compliant. The company should be trusted to secure your financial information and have security to avoid breaches.
• Able to cut down the time in-house billing takes to reimburse claims.
• Offer you the services to follow-up on your patient collections.

The underlying purpose of these services is to enable physicians to focus more on their patients’ care than worry about their practice business.

CureMD offers its clients best outsource billing experience. According to a research published by CureMD billing experts, 87% of their clients reported increase in cash flow. To view the research, please click on the following link.

Must Read: Top reasons to Outsource Medical Billing

What To Look For In a Cardiology EMR

One of the specialties that have benefited the most from Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is cardiology. This is because many customizable specialty-specific EMRs for cardiologists contain features that help transform the clinical operations of their practice.

General features: Moreover, integration with Practice Management (PM) systems for billing, an integrated patient portal module to engage existing patients, and bi-direction interface with labs allow for better coordination and more efficiency.

When looking for an Cardiology EMR, ensure that the system contains these general features to begin with. Additionally, here are the cardiology-specific features that your system must have:

Clinical documentation tools: The provision for custom reports in addition to a large number of cardiology-specific procedure and exam reports must be present in your system. CAD, Chest Pain, Angina and CHF are some examples of such reports that you will be utilizing on a day-to-day basis. Such provisions for clinical documentation will save you a lot of time and effort as you’ll simply need to fill in readily available procedure specific reports, and the chances of errors and missed entries will exponentially decrease.

Cardiology planning capability: Your system must also contain single-click diagnosis specific order sets to immediately begin procedure planning and for ordering labs. Confirm with your EHR Vendor if they will be automatically attached to the provider notes; as this will avoid duplicitous entries.   

Integrated EKG system: Another vital feature that any EMR must contain in today’s advanced health IT industry is that of an integrated EKG module. Such a module will help digitize EKG attributes, information and results directly onto the system creating a comprehensive patient record which includes all the stats, data and reports the clinical process requires.   

Patient education module: And finally, in addition to engaging the patients, a Patient Portal can be used as an educational tool. Heart patients are more likely to view educational documentation related to tests, treatment plans and procedures for their care; thus such a medium could help deliver better care.

Selecting the ideal cardiology EMR for our practice can be a strenuous process, but following these guidelines will surely simplify this process for you. 

Must Read: BREAKING: CMS issues draft Stage 3 rules for EHR incentive program