News From Around the Web
> The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) have joined forces to create a resource kit that provides tools needed to implement a quality improvement program in electronic health record documentation, Clinical Innovation+Technology reports. The kit offers standards for measurement, reporting and documentation improvement. The goal is to improve accuracy in patient records and thus improve patient safety. Article
> The Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services has released a new guidance that instructs providers how to use the National Institute of Standards and Technology's EHR Randomizer tool. The randomizer tool enables providers to exchange data with a test EHR to meet measure three of Meaningful Use Stage 2's transitions of care objective. The tool pairs a provider's EHR with a different test EHR from a list of authorized systems. The EHR then needs to successfully send a summary of care to the test EHR. CMS also issued three new answers to FAQs dealing with clinical decision support and patient engagement. Guide (.pdf) and FAQs
> Three EHR developers have made this year's list of Inc.'s 5,000 fastest growing American companies. CareCloud, drchrono and eClinicalWorks clocked in at 127th, 249th and 406th, respectively. This is the first year that CareCloud and drchrono appear on the list. List
Health Finance News
> Declining inpatient volume, falling reimbursement rates and failure to bring in enough revenue make rural hospitals the most vulnerable to closure, as demonstrated by a recent string of closure announcements. The East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare System announced it would not renew two leases with affiliates in Mount Vernon and Clarksville, and will phase out inpatient care emergency department at a third rural hospital in Gilmer. Crittenden Regional Hospital in West Memphis, Arkansas, stopped admitting new patients this week and will close its doors Sept. 7, after a fire in June financially crippled the already struggling hospital. Article
> The American Hospital Association (AHA) called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to cease what it calls "flawed and redundant" audits by its Office of the Inspector General in a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell. Of particular concern to AHA and its members hospitals is the use of extrapolations as part of the process to audit Medicare overpayments. Article
Health Insurance News
> Health plans participating in health insurance exchanges that fail to set up a "rigorous" regulatory compliance strategy set themselves up for potential financial losses, operational disruptions and aggressive federal enforcement action, says a new issue brief by Deloitte. Article
And Finally... Yes, it was risky, but you can't help but smile at what she did. Article