SMARTDC Monthly Newsletter- A Timely Summary of Your IT News

Majority of Patients Want Online Access to Doctors

From www.informationweek.com March 4, 2011

Nearly three-quarters of people want to be able to get lab results, request appointments, pay medical bills, and communicate with their doctor's office through secure portals, finds Intuit Health study. As a growing number of Americans use the Internet to perform a variety of health-related tasks, a new study shows that nearly three-quarters of those polled say they want the convenience of having an online connection to their doctor's office. These findings come from Intuit Health's second-annual Health Care Check-Up Survey, which found that 73% of Americans surveyed would use a secure online communication solution to make it easier to get lab results, request appointments, pay medical bills, and communicate with their doctor's office.

Doctors should take note of these trends, particularly since a connected office may determine the number of patients they attend to. The survey also found that almost half of respondents would consider switching doctors to a practice that offered the ability to communicate and complete important healthcare tasks online. The survey, which was conducted in January by Decipher Research for Intuit Health, polled 1,000 American adults online. The survey confirmed what other studies have shown, that Americans are increasingly turning to the Internet to help them manage various aspects of their healthcare.

Among the findings are:

• Nearly 20% of Americans feel they cannot easily reach their doctor's office to ask questions, make appointments or obtain lab results.
• A full 81% would schedule their own appointment via a secure Web service and fill out medical/registration forms online prior to their appointment.
• A secure online method to access medical histories and share information with their doctor would be used by 78% of respondents.
• Among Gen Y respondents (born 1965 to 1983), 59% said they would switch doctors for one with better online access, compared to only 29% of Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964).

Steve Malik, president and general manager of Intuit Health, said in a statement that patient anxiety is on the rise as they increasingly want to control their health issues, as well as communicate better with their doctor.

"Doctors who offer secure online solutions can meet this patient demand while increasing office efficiency and enhancing the doctor-patient relationship," Malik said. "In addition, online solutions, like a patient portal, have proven to improve staff and patient satisfaction levels, while positively impacting the physician's bottom line by reducing patient no-shows and increasing the speed at which payments are received." The survey also found that rising costs continue to be a major concern for people, with 70% saying they are somewhat or very concerned about managing their healthcare bills, the same percentage as last year. Healthcare costs increased in 2010 for 62% of respondents, and two-thirds believe their healthcare costs will increase in the future.

Baby Boomers were most concerned with rising costs: 66% said their costs have increased and 72% are most concerned with rising costs in the future. This compares to the 59% of Gen X and Gen Y (born 1984-2002) respondents who said their healthcare costs have increased, and 62% who were concerned with rising costs in the future. Additionally, the survey provided insights into patients' perspectives on medical bills and payment methods.

The survey showed that:

• Forty-one percent of consumers do not have confidence that the billed amount is correct.
• One in five is unsure whether to pay their doctor or the insurance company; Gen Y respondents were most unsure whom to pay: 28% versus 8% of Baby Boomers.
• At least one medical bill has gone to a collection agency for 57%. Women are twice as likely as men to let a medical bill go past due.
• Forty-five percent of patients wait more than a month to pay their doctor bill, and when they pay, half still send a paper check in the mail.

Many Respondents to CCHIT Survey Foresee Problems in Stage 2 of Meaningful Use

From www.iHealthbeat.org March 3, 2011

One-third of survey respondents said that the nine proposed measures for Stage 2 of the meaningful use program that are enhancements of the Stage 1 criteria are too aggressive, according to a new report by the Certification Commission for Health IT, Modern Healthcare reports.

Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health records can qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments.

The Certification Commission for Health IT -- which is federally authorized to test and certify EHR products under a temporary program -- conducted the survey in February ( Conn , Modern Healthcare , 3/4). Of the 468 survey respondents, 36% were health care providers, 29% were EHR vendors and 29% were other stakeholders ( Bell , "EHR Decisions," CCHIT, 3/3).

Key Findings

The survey found that more than 50% of health care providers and 40% of EHR vendors and other stakeholders expressed concern about the proposed Stage 2 requirement calling for electronic reporting of syndromic surveillance to public health agencies. According to CCHT, public health agencies currently lack sufficient infrastructure to analyze syndromic surveillance data.

Survey participants also said they anticipated problems with the Stage 2 requirements related to:

• Drug formulary;
• Health information exchange; and
• Medication reconciliation ( Modern Healthcare , 3/4).

Over 21,000 providers registered for EHR incentives

From www.GovHealthit.com By Mary Mosquera, Tuesday, February 22, 2011

More than 21,000 healthcare providers have registered to participate in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services electronic health record (EHR) incentive program, with about two thirds ready to confirm that they have met the meaningful use requirements when CMS activates the software for that.

The latest numbers cover the period until only the end of January, and CMS health IT officials reported a steady uptick in the numbers of providers registering.

The attestation module at the CMS website will launch in April, said Elizabeth Holland, director of the health IT initiatives group in the CMS Office of eHealth Standards and Services. It's taken so long because it's complicated, Holland said.

“A lot of systems need to interact with each other, and building all the interfaces takes a while,” she said Feb. 21 at the HIMSS 11 conference in Orlando, Fla. “We want to make sure we do it right. We're doing testing right now to make sure that we pay appropriately,”

The attestation module will walk providers through the core and menu measures, describing them on the display screen with boxes to check or show calculations. CMS also plans an attestation test module where providers, even if they are not formally ready to attest, can still input their information to practice and see if they can pass or not.

The first Medicare incentives will be paid out in May, while Medicaid has paid out $2.7 million so far to Medicaid providers under the EHR incentive program, Holland said.

CMS has placed a number of resources at its website to help providers become meaningful users. Besides frequently asked questions and user guides, CMS also started a listserv earlier this month in order to notify people about news and changes related to the incentive program.

Registration numbers climbing for EHR incentive programs

From www.FierceEHR.com By Janice Simmons - Contributing Editor Feb 24 2011

By the end of January, more than 21,000 providers initiated registration for the Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record incentive programs, Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) officials announced this week.

In addition, about two-thirds of that group are ready to confirm that they have met meaningful use requirements when CMS finally activates the attestation module on its website in April, according to Elizabeth Holland, director of the health IT initiatives group of CMS's Office of eHealth Standards and Services.

Building that many interfaces has taken time, Holland said Monday at the HIMSS11 conference in Orlando . When it is completed, the attestation module will guide providers through various core and menu measures--describing them on display screens with boxes to be used to check or show calculations, Government Health IT reports.

CMS also is planning an attestation test module in which providers--even if they are not yet ready to attest--can still insert their information to practice and see if they can pass or not, Holland said.

While the issuance of Medicare payments is scheduled to begin in May, Medicaid already has started to make payments. At the end of January, four states-- Oklahoma , Kentucky , Louisiana , and Iowa --reported initial Medicaid EHR incentive payments totaling $20,425,550, CMS announced.

In addition, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced that as of Feb. 11, more than 45,000 providers had requested information or registration help from 62 regional extension centers.

Study: Promise of PHRs Still Elusive

From www.Healthcaredatamanagement.com

A new study of the personal health records software market finds that the promises of the technology remain a long way off, despite some large delivery systems adopting PHRs and the federal government encouraging their use.

"Unfortunately, despite the renewed buzz and some well-publicized initiatives, the reality is that we are still no closer to a true personal health record than we were five or 10 years ago," according to the report from information technology services/advisory firm Computer Sciences Corp., Falls Church, Va. "Fundamental barriers still exist, and without major changes in behavior and dramatic increases in adoption of technology, a true PHR--and the benefits associated with it--will not be possible."

Three types of PHRs continue to dominate the market and each type has fundamental flaws. Payer-populated PHRs rarely have clinical information directly from providers, provider-populated PHRs generally have been limited to large delivery systems with high levels of electronic health records adoption, and untethered/patient-populated PHRs require manual data entry if a user cannot get the information electronically from providers and payers.

The market still does not offer a true PHR, according to the report. At a minimum, CSC says a PHR should include accurate and complete data from all care settings, interactive with data flowing between consumers and authorized clinicians, patient-controlled enabling the consumer to have lifetime access to the PHR data and decide who else has access, and secure and accessible only to the consumer and authorized third parties.