From CMS - A little breathing room to implement ICD-10-CM.

CMS recently greenlit two groups -- the non-profit Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) and the for-profit Drummond Group Inc. -- to certify electronic health record (EHR) systems. Only certified systems have the features needed to meet meaningful use, and earn providers up to $44,000 apiece in federal incentive money. Both groups recently posted PDFs listing their fees and methodology for testing and certifying EHRs, and the figures are pretty steep (read more on EHR certification fees and testing) ...

CMS's Internet-based Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) will be offline for scheduled maintenance from Wednesday, Sept. 29 through Sunday, Oct. 3. 

By our count, this is the second time PECOS will be out for maintenance this year. But many Medicare providers reported PECOS was virtually paralyzed at times over the summer as the online enrollment site was overwhelmed with visitor traffic.  

While PECOS is out, CMS suggests you wait for it to go back online on Oct. 4 or complete the paper enrollment application. If you need assistance or have questions, CMS suggests you contact the Medicare fee-for-service contractor serving your state.

Physician practices can expect Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to step up quality of care efforts. The health care reform law incentivizes MA plans to boost quality ratings by 2012.

The Kaiser Family Foundation (pdf) wrote an issue brief about the new bonus program. MA plans will receive extra payments when they achieve four or more quality stars out of five. The plans are graded on effectiveness, a consumer assessment, a health outcomes survey and CMS administrative data. CMS data includes statistics on appeals, audit results and customer service.  

Current rankings show some states have MA plans with better scores than other states.

Read more on Medicare Advantage plans

Smartphones and other mobile devices, such as tablet PCs, are seeing increasing use by everyone -- especially physicians. Around 63% of physicians report using a mobile device for health solutions in treating patients, usually as a handy data or reference source, according to a survey of 1,000 physicians by PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PWC).

Of these physicians, 56% said their devices "expedite decision making" and 40% said they "decrease time spent on administration."

The main advantage of using mobile technology in the practice setting is faster decisions, driven by accessing more accurate data in real time, the PWC survey concludes. Timely access to the right information was consistently cited as the top challenge to physicians, survey respondents said (read more on mobile health solutions) ...