HHS will dole out a total of $11.9 million to rural health clinics through its pilot program to support their adoption of electronic health records (EHR) systems and health information technology (HIT) such as telemedicine equipment, the agency announced Sept. 2 in a news release. 

You have at least a 93% chance of being required to revalidate a physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant by March 23, 2013. Physicians make up the bulk of providers who need to be revalidated as part of CMS’s new enrollment revalidation drive, which affects all providers who enrolled before March 25, 2011. Nearly 52% of these folks are physicians, according to a draft CMS statement-of-work document released May 27. Non-physicians make up the next biggest segment, representing 20.8% of the pie. 

Unfortunately, it’s pretty much a guarantee that you are going to get sued by a patient, according to a study published in the Aug. 18 issue of New England Journal of Medicine.  In fact, the study found that 99% of physicians in high-risk specialties, i.e. surgery, and 75% in lower-risk areas will get sued by the time they reach 65.

Don't start panicking yet, but it turns out that the electronic health record (EHR) incentive money everyone's been talking about could go right out the door. That's right, the up to $44,000 in per-provider subsidies could be eliminated by the Congressional "supercommittee," a bipartisan group of 12 lawmakers formed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 -- aka the debt ceiling law - passed Aug. 2 after much political wrangling. Whether the supercommittee comes up with a bill or not, this means your EHR incentive money could be reduced or even eliminated as a result of deficit cutting.

That’s right. The much anticipated finalized e-prescribing (e-Rx) rule can be expected as early as Friday and “may have additional hardship exemptions,” CMS officials announced on an Aug. 29 nationwide provider conference call for Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and e-Rx call.