HHS letter to healthcare providers regarding billing fraud

 Recently the Obama administration sent a letter warning the hospital industry that committing billing fraud is illegal. The letter was sent out because the administration had indications that some providers are using Electronic Health Record (EHR) to game the system.

Read the letter http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/25/business/25medicare-doc.html?smid=li-share.

A shot of optimism for this job seek

Healthcare finance news posted this article below on twitter, that gave this job seeker a shot full of optimism for her future in the healthcare industry.  I am grateful for this, as this job hunting has been going on for far too long. But I know it will be over soon, I feel like I am ready now and I have so much to bring to the table. Perseverance is the name of this game.

http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/healthcare-employees-concerned-about-economy-not-employability

Two New York hospital buck readmission trends

Two New York hospitals that are part of  New York City's Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC) buck the readmission trends, according to Modern Healthcare.com. According to the article, HHC succeeded in cutting readmission by investing in care management.

The US presidential candidates Medicare plan

This is a long but informative article is a Repost from Healthcare Finance: Romney-Ryan Medicare plan vs. Obama Medicare plan: Who's telling the truth?

Hospitals respond to re-admissions penalties

According to Healthcare Finance news, hospitals are not please with the penalties they will face if their readmission rate for medicare patients is above the accepted threshold set by the healthcare reform law. Read some of the reactions here. Below is the link to my previous post regarding the re-admissions policy: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6971965572668470923#editor/target=post;postID=1614942611964930965

A study from Kaiser: Health care on a budget

"The financial burden of out-of-pocket healthcare expensive is felt more disproportionately by the subgroups of medicare recipients"- Read it here

Hospitals will face penalty for excessive readmission

From Kaiser Health news: Hospitals will face penalty for excessive readmission of medicare patient start 2012. These penalties were authorized as part of the 2010 healthcare law. I think penalizing hospitals for excessive readmission is a good move as it will to force them to create an after hospitalization plan for their patients but I am worried that it will be unfair in instances were the hospitals have no control such as non –compliance by a patient.

Healthcare- Innovation should be encourage, threat for performance discourage

Check out this blog from EisnerAmper-Resurrecting Teamwork in Health Care I agree with the author that teamwork is needed in the healthcare industry. It is troubling to read that threat of punitive measures are being use to get workers to meet goals. I think that, If employers are afraid of punitive consequence when their ideas fail, they will stop trying to seek better way to do things, and just stick with the status quo. An organization that uses threat of job loss to keep its employees from failing will miss out on innovations, and many creative ideas as punitive consequence will stifle their employee’s and its own objectives and growth.

The department of Health and Human Services has a 'Wall of Shame'

Yesterday at a health IT seminar organized by the Healthcare Leaders of New York (HLNY) I learned that The department of Health and Human Service has a Wall of Shame. The Wall of Shame is a page of its web site where the Secretary is required by the HITECH act to post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. Click here to find out if your hospital is on the wall.

Health care reform case link

Here is the link to the Supreme Court's website where you can listen to the argument regarding the constitutionality of parts of the Health care reform law.