The stage 2 meaningful use final rule makes it official that the second phase of attestation for electronic health records (EHR) incentive payments will begin no sooner than 2014.

CMS also finalized that eligible providers (EPs) must register and attest for stage 1 meaningful use by Oct. 1, 2014, to avoid a penalty in 2015.  

A new Interim Final Rule is expected to make doctors' electronic fund transfers easier and less costly.

We are now another step closer to an entirely paperless healthcare business world, as HHS released a new set of operating rules that will require health plans to streamline the electronic fund transfer (EFT) and electronic remittance advice (ERA) process. The rule is expected to go live on Jan. 1, 2014.

It looks as though the sections of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that boost primary care payment can't come soon enough. A quarter of primary care physicians say they’re struggling financially, according to a June survey. The 26% of primary care doctors reporting poor financial health in the latest QuantiaMD Physician Wellbeing Index are contributing to the overall trend of doctors leaving primary care.

We've just read the CBO on the SGR. Long story short: Don't make long-term plans based on a permanent pay fix just yet.

In very unshocking news, figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) suggest the cost of a one-year fix for 2013 will come in at $18.5 billion, maybe more. The alternative, as you know, is a 30% cut you're unlikely to have to actually implement.

A third of the physician surveyed by Jackson Healthcare plan to retire or leave medicine within the next decade. Why?

The healthcare staffing company's polls tend toward the downbeat: In previous surveys, doctors told them that they didn't like the Affordable Care Act ("70% disbelieve that the law will contain costs; 67% don't expect it to improve the doctor-patient relationship").