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Welcome to the medical billing blog containing news and articles relating to medical billing, medical coding, ICD, HIPAA and practice management functions.
2004-2024 Celebrating 20 Years of Healthcare RCM Articles
The Blog Currently Contains 1,265+ Healthcare Articles
Increasing EHR use of problem lists among clinicians can save money
Healthcare organizations, policymakers, and health IT developers can take steps to increase clinician EHR use of problem lists for improved health outcomes and clinical efficiency, according to researchers from the University of Utah Department of Biomedical Informatics and Intermountain Healthcare. Hodge et al. conducted a systematic literary review of 848 full-text articles and included 110 articles in a thematic analysis to gain broad insights into the characteristics that define a useful EHR problem list, as well as the myriad factors that contribute to its success as a resource. Ultimately, researchers determined there is a need to improve problem lists in ways that encourage increased utilization by clinicians. “There is also …
RCM tip: Use an automated solution to tackle claim denials
As healthcare organizations continue to struggle with claim denials, an automated solution can help limit the issue, according to Kevin Lathrop, president of TriZetto Provider Solutions, a Cognizant company. Mr. Lathrop shared the following tip with Becker’s Hospital Review. “One way to keep denials from happening in the future is by stepping away from the manual processing that takes place at a computer terminal, and replacing it with an automated claims and denials system. An automated system has the benefit of knowing payer codes. Treatment codes change over time and must be kept up-to-date. Keeping track of them by hand is difficult and time-consuming, but an automated solution has the …
Trump Admin Shares Vision for Patient-Centered Health System
The Trump administration, led by Jared Kushner, director of the Office of American Innovation, and Seema Verma, administrator of CMS, spoke about its plans to put data in the hands of patients at the annual Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) conference, held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The administration announced its new initiative, MyHealthEData, which aims to break down the barriers preventing patients from accessing and controlling their medical records. “Patients should have access and control to share their data with whoever they want, making the patient the center of the health care system,” Verma says. Part of MyHealthEData will include the revival of the Medicare Blue Button initiative, …
EHR Time Exceeds Patient Face Time in Family Practice
Primary care physicians spend less time interacting face-to-face with their patients than they do working on electronic health records (EHR), according to a cross-sectional study published in the February issue of Family Medicine. “The majority of family physicians worked through lunch, stayed late at clinic, or took their work home to complete the day’s EHR work,” write Richard A. Young, MD, from the JPS Family Medicine Residency Program in Fort Worth, Texas, and colleagues. “Significant predictors of visit length included the number of reasons for the visit, new patients to the practice, the number of medications prescribed, whether the physician was Hispanic, whether a resident physician presented the patient to …
CMS Modifies E/M EHR Clinical Documentation Requirements
The American College of Physicians (ACP) recently applauded a CMS decision to change EHR clinical documentation requirements. Teaching physicians can now verify medical student documentation in a patient’s EHR related to evaluation and management (E/M) code services. “Prior to the change, physicians were required to re-document most work performed by medical students — which is often very thorough and based on careful and supervised evaluation — rather than review, refer to, amend, or correct the student note,” clarified ACP President Jack Ende, MD in a public statement. Changing the EHR clinical documentation requirement allows teaching physicians to educate medical students about EHR use within a more streamlined workflow and reduces …
