Over the last ten years, the cost of care has increasingly shifted to patients. This has been done through increasing co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles. Many of the ACA plans rely on patients to shoulder 40% of the cost of their care — even Medicare is now tracking at about 25% out-of-pocket cost to patients. Gone Read more…
Health IT
Republicans push for Obamacare repeal
For anyone who has depleted their savings on medical expenses, avoided going to the doctor for fear of a huge medical bill, or lost loved ones to cancer, Obamacare has been a tremendous blessing. Highly popular among Americans initially, President Obama’s signature health care law has provided health coverage to approximately 20 million Americans who Read more…
9 HIPAA Risks Hidden in Everyday Health IT
You may think your biggest HIPAA risk is a stolen laptop or hacked server. However, most of today’s data confirms that it’s far from true. Some experts in the field report that over 133 million health records were exposed in 2023, after more than fifty million in 2022; mostly from hacking and IT misinterpretations. Some Read more…
Top Ten Blog Posts from 2016
A glimpse of top HeathIT blog posts from 2016. Did you miss out on the trending healthcare news and insights from last year? Don’t worry! We got it all covered from digital health to patient engagement, physician payment models to MACRA, MIPS to EHRs and the rise of Trump care. After delving deep into the Read more…
MACRA: A Reality Affecting Us Sooner Than We Think
MACRA is born out of good intentions, but is fraught with implementation challenges. Anyone would think of MACRA’s implementation as a monumental task, when reading the final rule for it, which was issued by CMS on October 14. The document is indeed full of legal intricacies. The good news is that MACRA will pay physicians Read more…
How EHR Systems Help Pulmonology Practices Manage Complex Chronic Therapies Like IPF Treatment
One of the more challenging diseases a pulmonology practice sees with chronic disease is idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Patients are never seen and gone. In one form or another they come back for years to have their lung function and their medications monitored for years, and to have their side effects managed and documented over Read more…
How Your Primary Care EHR and Billing Workflow Decide Whether They Become Patients
A 41 year old walks into urgent care with a sinus infection. The nurse takes a blood pressure reading of 148/94, calls it a little high, and suggests following up with a regular doctor. The patient nods, thinks they really should find a primary care physician, and forgets about it before the antibiotics run out. Read more…
What Healthcare Providers Should Demand From an AI-Ready EHR
Artificial intelligence can only be as useful as the healthcare data it can access. An electronic health record may contain years of clinical notes, laboratory results, medications, imaging reports, and patient information, but poorly organized data can limit what AI systems can actually do with it. For healthcare providers, becoming “AI-ready” should therefore Read more…
How Is Augmented Reality Transforming Medicine?
Have you noticed more and more people walking around your town or city staring at their smartphones and acting a little…weird? If so, there’s no need to panic. These people are most likely playing Pokémon Go, a free augmented reality game for iOS and Android users. The app harnesses a phone’s GPS to inform players Read more…
AI in Healthcare: Bridging the Gap Between Traditional Medicine and Modern Tech
When most people think of AI in healthcare, they might think of machines predicting a heart attack or spotting a tumor. That’s already happening, but AI’s impact doesn’t stop there. With AI-powered interfaces pulling up exactly what a clinician needs. Electronic health records, predictive analytics, and automated scheduling free doctors to focus on patients, making Read more…