Practice Management

If you haven’t done so already, consider circling September 23, 2013 on your calendar. That’s the day that the federal government will start enforcing changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Opinions vary wildly on whether Obamacare will succeed, but there is little debate that Affordable Care Act will forever change the delivery of healthcare in the United States. Here's what it means for primary care physicians.

Medicare’s Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) currently offers .5% incentive to participate this year (1% with Maintenance of Certification); penalties will start in 2015 as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

The months are winding down until the health insurance exchanges mandated under the Affordable Care Act must be operational, and 17 states have declared their intent to open state-based exchanges, while seven have made plans for a partnership with the federal government, and another 27 have decided to let the feds take over their exchanges altogether.

The ICD-10 transition is a costly one for physicians, who must often purchase new information technology systems and train staff on the new coding system.

Medicaid expansion could save physicians and hospitals billions in uncompensated care costs. Yet fewer than half the states have agreed to increase their participation thresholds after challenging the expansion mandate before the Supreme Court last year.

October 3, 2013, is the last day doctors and other eligible professionals (EPs) can begin the attestation process to qualify for the first stage of meaningful use (MU1) in 2013.

Primary care physicians can, for the first time, get paid for transitional care management (TCM) - the time they spend coordinating care for patients transitioning from hospitals, nursing, or skilled nursing facilities back to the community.

Doctors have more tools at their disposal for helping patients than ever before, but demands on them are also greater.

Physicians are facing a cascade of change, and primary care doctors will lead them through it.

The mobile revolution just reached a tipping point, according to a recent survey. In fact, about 51% of respondents are using their tablets to access EHRs.

A nine-month telehealth pilot program was launched by Humana and AMC Health to evaluate clinical and financial outcomes of home-based monitoring for congestive heart failure (CHF) patients.

Adapting to rapid changes, legislative pressures and fiscal uncertainty rank as the top challenges facing practice business leaders.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released hospital outpatient charge data for the first time.

Medicare commission’s report to Congress wants to even the payment disparity for some procedures performed in hospital outpatient departments (OPD) and office-based practices.

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) wants to better integrate behavioral healthcare with primary care. In fact, the change is spelled out in new proposed standards for its Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program.

Epocrates, Inc., an athenahealth company and provider of the top medical app for U.S. physicians, has expanded collaborations with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN).

The FDA has approved the supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for licensure of its 4-strain influenza vaccine, Fluzone Quadrivalent vaccine (Sanofi Pasteur).

Featuring HD resolution in a 5mm diameter scope, the product provides bright, crisp images for seeing fine details during surgery. It also offers the surgeon 100 degree angulation in all directions as well as the flexibility to adjust direction of view to above, behind, or head-on.

Could you or your practice be at risk of complicity in Medicare fraud or abuse? The answer is almost certainly, YES.

Primary care physicians in a handful of states have already begun to receive higher Medicaid fees, but what's taking so long everywhere else?

Subspecialists recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS), or American Osteopathic Association (AOA) qualify for the higher payments.

For years there’s been discussion in Congress about fixing the flawed SGR, but legislators have never been able to agree on a solution. But now, serious proposals are on the table to replace the SGR formula, with both Republicans and Democrats working together to reach a solution to this long-standing problem.

Patients’ ratings of care experiences are a key part of quality improvement efforts, so health providers are increasingly finding their compensation tied in part to those ratings, according to a Commonwealth Fund-supported study.

Direct primary care (DPC) is a retainer-based model for primary care practices, but does not come with a standard set of rules like many other models. Instead, there is a common set of goals or characteristics, and DPC practices are making their own rules as they go.

The AAFP suggests exploring the following steps before embarking on a transition to a direct primary care model.

Here are eight tips to help you keep your patients’ accounts out of collection.

If a patient does not have capacity, another person may be designated to consent on the patient’s behalf. For a minor, the parents are usually the legal guardians and have the right to consent or refuse to give consent on behalf of the child.

Patients are paying nearly one-quarter of “the amount that health insurers set aside for paying physicians,” according to the National Health Insurer Report Card from the American Medical Association (AMA).

Primary care physicians are less likely to accept new Medicaid patients than office-based physicians in general, according to a new analysis in Health Affairs. But primary care physicians' acceptance of new Medicaid patients varies widely by state.