ARE YOU READY FOR SOME MONEY?!? Yes, there is money out there in the form of Medicare and Medicaid incentives! Okay, so what’s the catch? Meaningful Use. By now most providers, and their staff, are quite familiar with this term. Meaningful Use is a set of criteria established by CMS that must be met using […]

By: Amber Babyak Public health involves and affects everyone. From catching the common cold to the onset of a sudden, wide-spread disease—the health of the public is always an area of top concern. With the implementation of electronic health records, health information exchanges, and other tools of health information technology, the health and well-being of […]

Patients’ grasp of treatment choices and the confidence with which they manage their health and medical care may influence healthcare spending, a newly published study said. Patients with the highest scores on a self-reported survey of “knowledge, skills and confidence” to make healthy choices and informed medical decisions were less costly than those with the […]

U.S. doctors’ use of health IT has been sharply increasing, up from 46 percent who used an EMR in their practice in 2009 to 69 percent in 2012, according to a survey of nearly 9,800 primary care physicians representing 11 nations. TheCommonwealth Fund released findings of the survey in November 2011 in a study “A Survey of Primary Care […]

Practices should set expectations early in the process for how the money will be divided and how it will be spent.   As they do every time they expect to come into extra money, the partners at Acacia Internal Medicine Specialists talked about what to do with a bonus from the meaningful use incentive program. […]

“The full potential of consumer e-health is far from realized” As a new generation of seniors enters Medicare and millions of lower-income Americans gain Medicaid or private insurance for the first time in 2014, federal officials at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT are trying to help align the patient engagement movement with consumer e-health. “The […]

Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments are estimated to have blasted through $10.3 billion to a total of 180,200 physicians and hospitals through December since the program’s inception. December’s payments of $1.25 billion were driven by the largest amount of hospital payments for an individual month, according to Robert Anthony, a specialist in CMS’ Office of eHealth […]

Ninety-one percent of health care professionals say the devices improve their ability to access information on the go. Harish Gagneja, MD, a gastroenterologist in Austin, Texas, said the time he spends with his patients in the exam room hasn’t changed much since he started using a tablet. But he’s able to accomplish more in that time as […]

Trish Stone     Congratulations to Account Manager, Trish Stone, for being named the UCF Regional Extension Center 2012 Employee of the Year!   Trish brings a wealth of expertise to the UCF REC and is a tremendous asset to our team. She was awarded this designation for her unsurpassed commitment to quality and outstanding […]

Primary care physicians in the United States and other countries are making inroads on health information technology use but continue to experience access-to-care barriers and breakdowns in coordination issues with other health care professionals, the Commonwealth Fund reported in a survey published online Nov. 15 in Health Affairs. The survey polled nearly 8,500 primary care physicians […]