Your peers are racing to implement electronic health record (EHR) systems, with usage rising sharply over just the last five years. While CMS’s EHR Incentive Program is a driving factor, few practices are close to meeting meaningful use. Their experience, captured in a major new survey conducted by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), does reveal a few gems you can use to improve your own shot at meaningful use.

You have very few additions to and removals from CMS’s Average Sales Price (ASP) list to start the second quarter. In comparison to first quarter, drug prices remained stable and prices for the top drugs decreased by 0.4% on average. Prices changed 2% or less for 32 out of the top 50 higher volume drugs with 17 of the top 50 drugs seeing decreased.

You and your peers could improve patient care and earn extra money by being part of an accountable care organization (ACO), but this would be a major undertaking for smaller practices not made any easier by the proposed ACO, experts say. “We helped draft the proposed rule, so we certainly support ACOs,” says Chet Speed, vice president of public policy for the American Medical Group Association (AMGA). “But I think to make this thing attractive to a whole host of providers, there’s going to need to be some refinements.”
 

Recent national surveys show that practices with electronic health records (EHRs) remain in the minority, but the gap is shrinking rapidly, driven in part by CMS’s EHR Incentive Program. Those of your peers with EHRs do report high overall satisfaction levels, according to a major new study by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).
 

We are getting denials for services performed by our physicians in our recently opened ambulatory surgery center (ASC), but getting paid for the same service when done in our office. Are there site-specific ASC rules causing these denials? We bill the global service in each setting because the ASC is owned by our physicians.