Athenahealth becomes first vendor to guarantee ICD-10 compliance; American College of Radiology gets a new president;

News From Around the Web

> Athenahealth has become the first vendor to guarantee ICD-10 compliance, as outlined in an announcement on its website. "[Athenahealth] will meet quality parameters for ICD-10 readiness or you don't pay for our services," the announcement states. Article

Medical Imaging News

> The American College of Radiology last month elected Albert Blumberg, M.D., to serve as its new president. Blumberg, vice chair of the department of radiation oncology at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and a practicing radiation oncologist with Radiation Oncology HealthCare, long has been active in the profession. He is the immediate past-chair of ACR's Commission on Radiation Oncology, past president of the Baltimore County Medical Society, MedChi, and the Maryland State Medical Society. Article

> Information about radiology test results frequently are requested via patient portals, if available. The problem is that this information continues to be very difficult for many patients to understand. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, this is an argument for the development of new ways to share radiology information with patients. In the article, Corey Arnold, an assistant professor at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, and colleagues suggest using an "interpretive layer" between clinically-generated information and consumer-centric disease explanations to help patients better understand illnesses they are dealing with. Article

Healthcare Reimbursement News

> A majority of uninsured consumers--64 percent--haven't decided whether they will buy health coverage even though open enrollment for health insurance exchanges begins in just a few months, a new survey shows. The survey, which was conducted by InsuranceQuotes.com, also found that only 19 percent of the 1,000 uninsured respondents said they plan to buy health insurance, and another 10 percent said they intend to pay the penalty instead of obtaining coverage. Article

> The reform law's medical-loss ratio provision saved consumers more than $2 billion in only one year, says a new study published Thursday.The Kaiser Family Foundation study estimated that without the MLR rule, consumers' premiums would have been $1.9 billion higher in 2012. Plus, consumers received $241 million in rebates last year, bringing the total savings as a result of MLR requirements to $2.1 billion in 2012, according to the study. Article

And Finally… I was wondering why the deer's antlers were a weird orange color. Article