DEA Clears One Hurdle to “Meaningful Use” of EHR

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

E-Prescribing of Controlled Substances Allowed Under New Regs Doing its part to hasten the EHR revolution, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued an interim final rule on March 31, 2010 revising its regs to allow pharmacies, hospitals and physicians to use electronic prescriptions for controlled substances, known as Schedule II drugs, such as opioids, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, and anabolic steroids. This opens a door for practitioners to prove they are “meaningful EHR users” under the ARRA and HITECH and thus be eligible for incentive payments beginning next year. The DEA’s new regs align federal policies on controlled substances with the goal of moving the health care industry toward e-prescribing.

Want Physicians to E-Prescribe? Give Them Dollar Incentives

Sunday, March 21, 2010

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Study: Physicians are no big fans of electronic prescriptions. Tailored incentives may drive physicians to adopt electronic prescriptions more, according to a study conducted which measured the use of stand-alone e-prescribing (SEP) in a health-plan-sponsored environment. The findings appear in a report published by the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC) on March 9. The study was designed to know how much the primary care physicians (PCPs) would use SEP, and to determine which physician and patient characteristics were associated with higher rates of each.

An HIT Pro’s Guide to the CMS Web Site’s Greatest Hits

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re a HIT Rock Star like all the rest of the folks who read this blog, but here’s the real question: Can you find your way around the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Web site? If the mere thought of getting around the CMS web site makes you feel like a one-HIT wonder, take heart. CMS has come up with this handy sheet that highlights its top web destinations. And for your convenience, we’ve listed the CMS links here that HIT & EMR types will be looking for. CMS Acronym Finder: Talk Medicare lingo like the hepcat you are. E-prescribing: Who’s cool enough to be an ‘EP?’ Find out here. Electronic Billing & EDI Transactions. CMS Glossary: Take a magical mystery tour through Medicare mumbo jumbo — & finally understand what they’re talking about. HIPAA. Need I say more? It’s a…

Field-Tested E-Prescribe Training Tips

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

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Ditch the pad. If you’ve ever called a friend to program your TIVO or help you rejigger your privacy settings on Facebook, you know that even the sharpest techies sometimes need a little help from their friends. That’s what scares some physician practices away from e-prescribing, despite the easy two-percent e-prescribe bonus available to them in 2010. When it comes to training, your physician practice peers may not be able to coach you on whether their e-script implementation went smoothly, since many ofthem haven’t yet taken the plunge. “It is estimated that only 12 percent of office-based prescribers currently use e-prescribing,” says Barbara Cobuzzi, president of CRN Healthcare Solutions. When the time comes to train your staff on how to use the e-prescribing system, your best bet is to gather everyone together.

Physician Practices Follow 3 Simple Steps To Enter the E-Prescribing Era

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

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Find out what percentage bonus you’ll receive from Medicare. Can your physician afford not to adopt e-prescribing? If your practice still hasn’t applied electronic prescription processes, then you could be missing out on a two percent Medicare bonus — as well as preventing prescription errors and lowering consumer costs.Follow these three simple steps to ensure an easy transition. Background: Payers and health plans have pushed for new incentives for electronic prescription this year. For instance, beginning January 2009, Medicare has paid doctors a bonus if they swapped their prescription pads over to e-prescribing. Several private health plans also have offered extra payments along with free equipment (i.e., digital handheld devices).

2010 Final Rule Simplifies E-Prescribing Process

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

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New financial incentives for EHR. But think long & hard before you join the EHR conga line, analysts warn practices. CMS’s 2010 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule spells out the income opportunities that practices can seize if they want to collect the maximum allowable reimbursement from Medicare next year, and for the first time, electronic health records can be part of a practices PQRI measures. In particular, the Final Rule indicates that in 2010, physician practices will be able to earn a PQRI incentive payment of 2 percent of their estimated total Part B allowed charges — and CMS will offer additional reporting options to help ease that process. CMS will add 30 individual PQRI measures and six measures groups on which individual eligible professionals may report, the Final Rule indicates. The Final Rule will also add an electronic health record (EHR)-based reporting mechanism, which will “promote the adoption and use…

Tool Reveals Whether E-Prescribe Will Get Bang For Your Buck

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard that physicians are eligible for e-prescribing bonuses, but will the cost of a new system or upgrade be worth it? The American Medical Association (AMA) has unveiled a new tool to help physician practices decide about e-prescribe. “A recent survey found about 30 percent of physician participants use an e-prescribing system in their practice,” said Joseph Heyman, MD, an AMA board member, in a June 30 statement. “This is a sizeable increase from the 13 percent who said the same at the end of last year.” The AMA’s online portal allows physician practices to calculate time savings and eligibility for incentive payments. Comparison shop: Potential e-prescribe buyers can access the AMA’s “system finder tool” that selects three systems that might suit your practice, based on your responses to a questionnaire. (Note to HIT vendors: Visit the site to see how you and your competitors stack up.) You an access the

Seeking the Meaning of ‘Meaningful Use?’

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

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We’ve all heard the term ‘meaningul use,’ but what exactly does it mean? The latest American Medical News tackles the ‘meaningful use’ question. To qualify for ARRA incentives, it’s not enough to simply purchase EHR. They must achieve ‘meaningful use.’ Here are some bullet-quick takeaways for HIT professionals seeking a path to enlightenment: HHS hasn’t officially defined ‘meaningful use’ in a regulation, but there’s enough language in the legislation to guess what the feds will say before their end-of-year deadline. Meaningful use involves system certification, as well as capabilities for electronic prescribing, quality reporting and information exchange. If you’re buying HIT now, the no-surprises approach is to go with a big vendor that will adapt your system to developing federal regs. Best way to get a jump on achieving meaningful use in your health care organization? Seek out those paper holdouts among your clinicians, and ‘electrify’ them. More from AMNews…

5 Steps Tame PHI Breaches

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

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Down, Tiger. These 5 steps can help your health care organization avoid PHI gone wild, as well as those pesky PHI breach notifications that are your worst nightmare. 1. Limit access: Be selective about to whom you grant access — some practices build filters to prevent staff members from access records they don’t need to do their jobs. Example: In multi-specialty groups, consider blocking staff from looking at the patient records of other specialties, says attorney Michael C. Roach. It’s unlikely that some individuals, such as appointment schedulers, need to have access to the EHR at all. Alternatively, you could provide access to certain staff members in a limited data set format, suggests attorney Wayne Miller. Other ways to limit access include positioning terminals out of others’ line of vision and enforcing rules such as locking workstations upon getting up and not sharing passwords.…

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