All Articles Mentioned by Melissa Clark, CCS-P, RT
All Articles Mentioned by Melissa Clark, CCS-P, RT - President and CEO
Welcome to the archived list of all articles mentioned and posted to the site by our Chief Executive Officer, Melissa Clark, CCS-P, RT.
All mentioned articles are listed below and categorized by date, newest to oldest. Click any link below to read the entire synopsis.
How Do We Improve Data Collection and Exchange Following COVID-19?
How Do We Improve Data Collection and Exchange Following COVID-19? Christopher Jason answers this question in an article at EHR Intelligence. Reducing measurement burden, addressing the lag in reporting data quality, and improving data standardization will be key to boosting clinical quality measurement, according to a recent journal article published in JAMA Network. “There is a lack of information that would help clinicians improve care delivery in the moment and learn for the future,” J. Matthew Austin, PhD, and Allen Kachalia, MD, wrote in the article. “This situation highlights how the current approach to quality and safety measurement remains too labor intensive, contains significant data lags, and lacks sufficient …
Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Unraveling HIPAA Rules?
Art Gross poses a great question over at Health IT Answers… Is COVID-19 unraveling HIPPA? “The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created in 1996 to protect patients and their privacy, and if you are in healthcare, you already know this and are familiar with what it means. With a goal to ensure that people could maintain health insurance between jobs, thus the “Portability” part of the name; along with a second, and critical goal, to address the “Accountability” of insurance to protect the confidentiality part of patient information and data. This meant mandating standards of privacy for electrotonic protected health information (PHI) and data that was …
Poor Payer Reimbursements are Effecting Practices During COVID-19
HealthIT Answers posted an interesting article on how the pandemic is effecting providers. “Most physicians who have been practicing for a few decades remember the days when private payer reimbursements dwarfed Medicare reimbursements. That dynamic has long since flipped, starting with the 2008 recession. Reimbursements have been flat or have lost value from inflation, while practice costs have seen double-digit increases. Meanwhile, hospitals and insurance-owned health networks have seen reimbursements increase to 300% or more of Medicare in some cases, whereas it’s not uncommon for private practices to receive rates far below Medicare standards. Many practices have seen their volumes decrease from 30% to up to 90%, and a significant …
Capitol Hill is paying a lot of attention to ICD-10…
“Capitol Hill is paying a lot of attention to ICD-10 implementation” is a great article by Carl Natale on ICD-10 Watch that talks about a big week in ICD-10 implementation… Excerpt: “The U.S. House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health, chaired by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA), has scheduled a hearing on “Examining ICD-10 Implementation” for 10:15 a.m. Wednesday. There isn’t a list of witnesses yet. But expect representatives from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and American Medical Association (AMA) at least. There are plans to livestream it at http://energycommerce.house.gov/. This comes a day after the Coalition for ICD-10 sponsors …
Ensure Complete Medical Billing For Every Encounter
“Don’t Overlook Coding Opportunities For Routine Healthcare Services” is a great article by Greg Freeman on Health Leaders Media’s site. The article talks about a big problem that we see every day, in that providers are not always paying close attention to coding for normal, everyday services, therefore they are not being reimbursed in full… Excerpt: “Optimizing your revenue is an ongoing challenge for any physician practice, and the task only gets harder as the healthcare industry changes and reimbursement is restructured. But one way to improve your practice revenue can easily be overlooked in all the effort to accommodate the new factors: making sure you are charging fully …
