Have you heard this before: It takes me forever to find the information I’m looking for in an electronic health record (EHR) note because of pages of unnecessary language automatically generated by the software? Even the physicians’ workaround to look for the visit note’s last paragraph for essential information doesn’t work with some EHRs that don’t create encounter notes with such automatic prioritization. 

This chart depicts the most common factors preventing your peers from sharing more patient information electronically with other health care offices. Note: The data is based on results of the 2012 Healthcare Provider Survey: Key Findings on Revenue Cycle Management, Audits and Automation, compiled by IVANS in Stamford, Conn. The chart reflects 709 responses to a January 2012 web-based survey of almost entirely business/administrative managers at various health care offices, including private medical practices, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, home health agencies and billing companies. For a free executive summary of the report, email your request to Cecile Locurto at Cecile.locurto@ivans.com.

TrailBlazer Health Enterprises lost its CMS contract to Highmark Medicare Services on March 1. CMS denied Trailblazer’s petition March 1 and is moving forward with the merging of Jurisdiction 4 into Jurisdiction JH, which will be all Highmark’s territory, according to the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) report on TrailBlazer’s petition of the change.

Be prepared to meet even stricter electronic health records (EHR) reporting requirements, but also to benefit from improved interoperability and vendor responses to specialty-specific provisions, now that CMS released its proposed rule for stage 2 meaningful use.

Don’t assume the burden of educating patients about their payment responsibilities on your own. Instead, seek a local business partner to help you teach patients about their health plans – particularly the high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) – and you’ll improve collections and patient relations.