November 22nd 2024
Telehealth visits are a useful vehicle for pediatric health care delivery, although they shouldn’t be a universal substitute for in-person visits, says new study.
Demystifying Medicare's 'incident to' billing by nurse practitioners, physician assistants
September 25th 2013There are multiple considerations when it comes to considering “incident to” billing by NPs and PAs, including using a physician’s PIN, direct physician supervision, exceptions to direct supervision, and drawbacks to using this billing method.
EHR companies Greenway, Vitera to merge following acquisition
September 24th 2013In a cash deal valued at $644 million, Vista Equity Partners, Vitera’s parent company, will buy Greenway Medical Technologies. The deal expected to close this year following regulatory approvals would combine the two electronic health record companies.
Behavioral counseling key to reimbursements for obesity
September 10th 2013Many of our patients seem to be gaining weight, and we are seeing more cases of obesity. Our physician is already spending time discussing risk factors with patients. Is there reimbursement specifically for weight management counseling?
EHRs and audits mean new roles for physicians, staff
September 10th 2013With the introduction of electronic health records (EHRs), and the increasing use of audit results and quality measures for payment, it is clear that the traditional nurse and front-office staff job descriptions have to be revamped. As doctors have to meet more and more requirements to get paid, they need to rely heavily on their staff to collect and enter data that insurers will review and use to determine payments.
Should physicians prescribe video games to elderly patients?
September 6th 2013A recent study in the journal Nature that showed that playing a relatively simple car-racing video game helped seniors improve their memory, focus and multi-tasking skills is being hailed by some as a gamechanger. But does this mean that physicians should begin instructing elderly patients to play video games?
The big problem with most social media policies for physicians
August 22nd 2013Social media guidelines for physicians frequently focus on the need for doctors to separate their personal from their professional identities, but those types of policies get social media all wrong, according to a viewpoint recently published in JAMA.
Mostashari ends tenure at ONC, but not without an exchange about EHR interoperability
August 7th 2013In one week Farzad Mostashari, MD, twice made national news. He announced his unanticipated departure as national coordinator for Health Information Technology (HIT) this fall, and he authored new research in Health Affairs showing that the exchange of health information jumped 41 percent.
Study shows what physicians must do to engage patients in their EHRs
August 5th 2013Much of the national discussion on electronic health records adoption has focused on physicians, but getting the most out of this technology will require significant buy-in by patients. Find out what researchers learned when they studied how physicians can best engage patients in online records.