The following excerpt is from an article found on Health IT News. It was written by Ryan Beckland, CEO & Co-Founder, Validic. ------------------------------ In my previous article, I identified four trends indicative of the coming surge in healthcare innovation and shift to value-based care. Delving deeper into those drivers of innovation, we have already witnessed examples and proof that the trends for 2016 are underway—and that the year ahead promises great progress with the potential only technology can provide.

Data breaches are becoming all-too common these days. It’s difficult to read the news without seeing yet another account of a major institution suffering from intrusions by computer criminals. Each such incident should serve as a reminder to shore up our own data stores. Of course, no system will be 100% foolproof, but when you own or manage a medical organization, it’s your duty to ensure that you are doing everything possible to secure the healthcare data that you maintain on each patient (within reason and by following current best practices).

You’ve been using your electronic health record software for quite a long time now, and at this point you are getting ready to compare the experience of using it with what you now about the offerings of competing EHR providers. Now you are tasked with evaluating new providers. The trick is in knowing whether you should stay with the old provider or move on to a new one. Here are hints to help you decide whether switching EHR providers is right for you at this time.

When considering the impact of medical billing mistakes in your organization, let’s begin by recognizing that to err is human and to forgive is divine. Discovering there are problems doesn’t need to devolve into a wave of finger pointing and blame. But recognizing that you are making mistakes with your medical billing can be positive because now you can make an effort to correct them. When you take care of the mistakes, the results should be less stress on your already busy staff, improved revenue flow and the confidence that comes with knowing you have set your system right. Are you and your team making these three medical billing mistakes?

The following excerpt is from an article found on www.healthitoutcomes.com. It was written by Christine Kern. -------------------------- Population health initiatives are growing in number and popularity across the nation as one way to reduce overall healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes. Recently, PwC's Health Research Institute (HRI) released Population health: Scaling up in which they interviewed executives in leading healthcare, research and academic institutions on how organizations can better scale their efforts.

Quick: how much did your organization spend on medical office software? Even if the number is on the tip of your tongue, you may not be taking into account other costs of using the software. While an application might look good on the surface and seem to have standard features and ease of use, poorly developed medical office software could wind up costing you more in the long run. For example, your staff wastes more time correcting errors, experiences a drag in morale (and therefore productivity) or patients leave the practice because your security breach exposed them to identity theft. Here is more information on the true cost of bad medical office software.

Every patient encounter that takes place inside your medical organization should result in new information being recorded. Details of the visit, whether typed into the Electronic Health Record application or spoken and converted to text with built-in speech recognition are added to the EHR. With all this information at your fingertips, the trick is to manage, organize and retrieve the data in a useful way for you and your team. You don’t need to be an IT specialist to appreciate the benefits of using EHR software, let alone how to find the information you need. Becoming more familiar with what is being stored and the ways your team can access it is crucial. Read on for details on how to get the right data from your EHR software.

It makes sense that owners or managers of medical organizations would set up a billing process and then continue to use it over the years without ever analyzing it to see if it could stand some improvement. After all, if the software was working properly after you first implemented it, you may have considered the matter settled. The old adage that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it comes into play more times than you might imagine in modern medical offices. But software and computer technology will continue to advance, as does our ability to connect with one another over the network and exchange information. Failure to stay on top of such developments and take advantage of them will naturally lead to inefficiencies, relatively speaking. Just because your office seems to be functioning properly, it doesn’t mean that your employees are working at their best capacity. They may be working around the inefficiencies instead of realizing that improved software would help them do their jobs better. In fact, you may determine that now would be a good time to consider installing new software as well as outsourcing your medical billing process to third party experts. Here are five reasons why your medical billing process is inefficient.

As the manager or owner of a thriving medical practice, you know that it is prudent to routinely take time to look at the entire business and see how its processes are integrated. To that end, increasingly sophisticated software offerings are now available to medical practices to help ensure things really are humming along, and you don’t want to miss out on any potentially helpful solutions. Two “off the bat” solutions are systems are electronic health records (EHR) and practice management (PM). Many practices opt for an all-in-one EHR-PM system. Once set up, you have essentially deployed an in-house capability for revenue cycle management (RCM). Adding a patient portal will do wonders for increasing patient engagement and connectivity between practice and patient, and vice versa. With these thoughts in mind, here are four technology trends that indicate a healthy practice.

The following excerpt is from an article found on Beckers Hospital Review. It was written by Kelly Gooch. ------------------------------- Medical practices are always looking for ways to maximize patient care. To achieve this, there are various strategies physicians can use to streamline revenue-related processes, according to the American Medical Association. The AMA said it's important that physicians have a practice management system in place that works best for staff and medical personnel before implementing new processes. Once a medical practice management software is in place, the AMA recommends practices take advantage of these six ways to make revenue cycle management processes more efficient.