The Longitudinal Patient Record — A virtual “MRI” of your patient’s medical record

Published on May 26, 2011 by Seth Flam DO in EHR Technology. 0 Comments
Two-Doctors-Laptop

With EHR adoption there is an opportunity to improve the health of your patient population. There are certain tasks that become more accurate when the processing power or formatting of an EHR is leveraged. This is one in a series of articles that explains how the “Holy Grail” of improving quality at the point of care is achieved with MediTouch EHR®. See our prior post on MediTouch Health Maintenance.

When speaking to providers that are considering the move to EHR from paper

charts we commonly hear that they feel that it may be challenging for them to find the mission critical data required to make clinical judgments efficiently and accurately. Those providers have an almost sentimental attachment to their paper chart. With the paper chart they “know where everything is”. To a layperson the paper chart may appear cluttered and so 20th century. To the provider that paper chart is a familiar resource chock full of medical data. There is a very good reason why physicians may feel this way. Continue reading…

Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances (EPCS) — Sorry not yet ready for primetime

Published on May 19, 2011 by Seth Flam DO in e-Prescribing. 0 Comments
Electronic Prescription eRx

There’s not a week that goes by that we don’t receive a comment from a physician that goes something like this; “We love the ePrescribing module in MediTouch EHR – we wish we could use it on all prescriptions (controlled substances also)”. We thought it would be a good idea to “clear the air” on why there are two workflows for prescribing and why providers should not hold their collective breath on a change in the status quo. Let’s start with some background on prescribing of controlled substances.

The New Law On June 1, 2010 the government enacted the Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances law. The purpose of the EPCS law is to revise DEA regulations to provide practitioners with the option of writing prescriptions for controlled substances electronically. The new regulations are an addition to, not a replacement of, the existing rules. The goal of the new regulations is to provide pharmacies, hospitals, and practitioners with the ability to use modern technology for controlled substance prescriptions while maintaining a tight system of controls on controlled substances. In fact you may have received a letter from the DEA that said a law was passed that allowed for EPCS. Legally there is now a path to EPCS but it is just the first baby step toward that goal. The letter that most providers received was misleading because it raised the expectation of providers that EPCS was possible immediately and that was just not true although with the passage of the law now EPCS is (theoretically) possible. Continue reading…

Meaningful Use Incentives — Locked for Payment

Published on May 5, 2011 by Seth Flam DO in EHR Meaningful Use. 0 Comments
Locked-Payment

They said it could not be done but we proved them wrong! Back in 2009 when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (aka the stimulus package) was enacted the legislation that funds the EHR Meaningful Use (MU) incentive program we made the following predictions:

Prediction #1 – The program would start and pay as scheduled – CMS has come through and although there were many skeptics, this is one time CMS and the Feds have performed – they have actually started paying the 44 – 64 thousand per provider

Prediction #2 – CCHIT would lose their monopoly on EHR certification – now there are six authorized certification bodies listed on the ONC (Office of the National Coordinator) website Continue reading…

Procedure and Diagnosis Pre-Coding — Can your EHR make your billing team coding angels?

Published on May 2, 2011 by Seth Flam DO in Claims Clearinghouse. 0 Comments
Medical claims billing angel

In our last blog we discussed how important suggestive Evaluation and Management (E/M) coding is for physicians. MediTouch EHR simplifies E/M coding but unlike many EHRs our system also has additional automated methods that work with your billing team to assist with other non-E/M procedure codes and even diagnosis codes. MediTouch EHR is a completely integrated EHR/Billing/Clearinghouse system and because of that level of integration it can make coding at the point of care simpler for doctors. Before a provider even sees a patient, much, if not all of the encounter can be pre-coded.

How does pre-coding work? For years our practice management system has supported the concept of claim templates — pre-coded claims that code themselves for visits that are repetitive. If you see patients for repetitive visits or if your staff knows how you code for certain visit types then pre-coding via claim templates makes coding simple. Your staff simply saves a favorite claim as a template and associates it with an encounter in your schedule. Continue reading…

Evaluation and Management Coding — May we suggest a code?

Published on April 19, 2011 by Seth Flam DO in Claims Clearinghouse. 0 Comments
Piles-of-Paperwork

Many physicians do not know how to code. It’s hard to believe that a task that physicians execute many times each day is performed improperly over and over again. Pretty bold statement, but I have the evidence, at least as it relates to family docs. In 2001 the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine published a study on the Accuracy of CPT Evaluation and Management Coding by Family Physicians. In general the study showed that physicians were chronically undercoding! It is counter-intuitive that doctors would be “cheating” themselves. There is of course a logical explanation. First of all, physicians are under-trained with regard to coding, especially Evaluation and Management coding. Doctors are usually not trained in medical school on how to code properly and when coding rules change they are too busy to enroll in billing classes. In addition physicians are terrified of over-coding. They abhor the possibility that they will be negatively profiled or penalized by insurance companies. Doctors recognize that insurance companies try to view their coding through the prism of the old-fashioned bell curve. Providers are resigned to the fact that no matter how hard they work and how much time they spend with a patient they can not bill E/M codes accurately for the excellent service they provide. Physicians are usually not shy about billing for their hard work, but why do they become timid with regard to E/M coding? Continue reading…

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