The decisions of oncologists often hold the key to successful or failed cancer treatment. This is particularly true with the deadly pancreatic cancer that has claimed the lives of illustrious people...
Reducing Avoidable Hospital Readmissions Can Improve Healthcare Quality
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has introduced several new financial incentives and penalties in order to optimize the overall healthcare system performance. Policy makers are constantly searching for...
Increase in Hospitalization and ER Use After Medicaid Expansion is Temporary
A new study from the "UCLA Center for Health Policy Research" reports that the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may lead to considerable increase in the use of emergency...
4 New HCPCS Modifiers in Lieu of the -59 Modifier
CMS is introducing four new HCPCS (Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System) modifiers to identify subsets of modifier 59 that is used to designate a "distinct procedural service". The new subset...
Prepare to Meet the Tougher Physician Quality Reporting Requirements
Physician quality reporting system (PQRS) was established in 2007 and is a pay for reporting program that provides a combination of incentive payments and negative payment adjustments to encourage...
New Study Findings on EHR Switching Trends
Electronic health record (EHR) adoption rate continues to rise in the United States with many hospitals and physician practices progressing strongly towards meaningful use and the implementation of...
Eligibility for Health Insurance Subsidies in Question
In the United States, under the new healthcare law about 8 million people have signed up for private health plans via health insurance exchanges. However, as per the latest reports from federal...
AMA Approves New Telemedicine Policy
Telemedicine has just got a boost with the American Medical Association (AMA) approving a list of the guiding principles presented at its Annual Meeting held from June 7-11, 2014. A component...
A Detailed Look at Orthopedic CPT Code Changes 2014
From the very beginning of this year (January 1), orthopedic practices saw a series of modifications in relevant CPT codes as a part of annual changes. As per the AMA President, the latest CPT code...