The Cusp of 2006

As we end 2006 I want to thank Dimitriy for involving me with The Medical Blog Network.For the past two years my involvement with a RHIO and Health Information Technology have given me the opportunity to meet and learn from other professionals about improving healthcare.A fresh outlook is always a good thing. I am convinced that patients must have involvement and ownership of their healthcare "system"; it is in fact an essential element to move forward.Government alone, nor payors nor employers can perform this great task alone.So I wish all of you a happy and health 2007, and hope that we all do not "pay for performance".I invite you to read my further comments at healthtrain express www.healthtrain.blogspot.comGary Le...

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Posted in: health train,medical blog network,ownership,rhio

Good Bye to 2006

Year 2006 entertained new developments in medical social blog networks. This has provided new and "out of the box" resources for communication and discourse amongst diverse and at times historically adversarial components of our "health system". Consumer driven advocacy and health savings accounts have been introduced with varying results. Whether any or all of this will lead to reduced costs is very open to question, but it will certainly provide new resources for providers, payors, and patients as consumers to plan future developments.RHIOs are experiencing serious difficuties in funding, and EMR promulgation although highly touted is also lagging due to financial constraints upon providers. CMS reimbursement cutbacks have also affected EMR acquisition by practices.As a coordinator...

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Fantasy Reimbursements

There are now many proposals by CMS regarding health information and their ability to gather data from EMRs, claims information and other sources from both hospitals and medical practices.Not many of these have been worked out financially for the providers or the hospitals. Most of the proposals require software changes or running a parallel system to track the information they are requesting. For physicians this will cost far greater than the 1.5% proposed increase CMS is proposing as an "incentive". Most practices don't even have EMRs at all. Those without the digital EMR will be forced to workout a paper trail that again increases the paperwork burden to providers. Here are some of the particulars. (from Health IT News, via iHealthbeat.orgAccording to Thomas B. Valuck, MD, medical...

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Time MAN OF THE YEAR

I made it, in case you have not already read......you and I as bloggers and web communicator beat out Cheney, Rumsfield, and Amadinajab (if that is how you spell it) for this annual award!You will read all about it in the next week or soSo sit back and enjoy your fame....it is fleeti...

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Is Pay for Performance Illegal???

Today’s news from CMA clips, The New York Times and other reliable sources reveals an impending tsunami, or at least a sea-change in the way medicare proposes to reimburse providers. Pay for performance and also Pay for Population Health care as quoted in some recent journal articles opens a whole new bag of worms. While some insurance carriers and private payors have done some initial studies and give groups incentives for following certain practice guidelines, there are serious questions and doubts amongst physicians, the AMA, CMA and even some senators and congressmen who have typically been pro-active about regulating reimbursement using a stick rather than a carrot.Headlines read “Government will offer a carrot, rather than a stick” to control rising medical costs.First of all the...

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Web Seminars from Microsoft

As I have traveled along the health highway several trains have either run over me or passed me by.In some cases all is well, but in others I have been caught on the track and unable to “get out of the way”In today’s world one has to be a visionary with an open mind to see all the possibilities that are on the horizon or already quietly developing without your knowledge. Knowledge is power and the limiting factor on gathering important knowledge for you as a physician is critical.It is as important to know what not to read as it is to read the sources that are credible and reliable. One also has to have discernment to differentiate between them. Time is wasted reading the wrong material, time that would be better spent relaxing.In your daily activities operating, seeing clinic patients,...

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Posted in: covey,e myth,entrepeneur,fenn,gerber,goldsmith,health train,seminars,taylor,visionary

Web 2.0 Applications for Medicine

Some of you may have heard about what is now called Web 2.0. This is another term for .asp solutions that run over the internet. Businesses in other sectors are now using this more and more rather than investing in expensive software and hardware that often require upgrading and expensive maintenance contracts. This portion of the expenditure for IT is often not appreciated and can run up to 20% of the investment in IT. Many medical practices utilize this method to transition to inhouse EMR.Several applications are now becoming available for RHIO development, and may be the best solution not only in the short run but in the long run as well. The scalability of this solution is enormous and fits both small, medium and large practice needs. It does not require affiliation with a group,...

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What's New??

Okay, I have submitted to my urge to upgrade the RHIO blog to something a bit more diverse and expand the scope of it to include other interesting health related information. With this transition to ver 2.0 of blogger.com, comes the ability to do some fancier things such as RSS feeds and other techno-marvels I can name but clearly go beyond the capability of my 1943 CPU. This is merely a test posting you have found after being referred from the old blog site.All future posts will be made to "Health Train Expres...

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Posted in: emr,health information technology,heath data exchanges,outcomes,p4p,public social engineering,rhio