Government & Policy

Robert Rowley, former CMIO of Practice Fusion, analyzes meaningful use data and finds the sheer number of EHR vendors unsustainable. That's one among the reasons the market is ripe for mergers and acquisitions activity.

Bob Belfort, partner in the healthcare practice at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, discusses the difficulties hospitals and public health departments face in deciding when to notify patients about a data breach.

Another milestone: The Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record program has paid out $5.58 billion to 110,650 physicians and hospitals in total program estimates through May 2012.

With the Supreme Court decision on the health reform law expected for delivery by the end of June, more policymakers, experts and stakeholders have been vocal about their predictions of the outcome.

The most paramount obstacle to fighting fraud today is the "pay and chase" culture of rapid payment, rather than detection. Here are four new ways to change that and start eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse of healthcare funds.

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the substance of the Affordable Care Act, it's time to refocus attention toward the essentially bipartisan support for health IT. At the same time, it's worth reconsidering some closely-held beliefs about technology's role in care delivery.

The ACA surviving the Supreme Court means that now is the time for a Health IT orthodoxy 2.0, contends John Loonsk, MD, with a focus on improving data quality in the near-term to ultimately bolster decision support.

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the ACA, CIOs such as Ed Ricks are left to forge a path forward via health IT. Here's what Ricks is thinking.

The NQF Board of Directors has voted to stick to its decision to endorse a new all-cause hospital-wide readmissions measure developed by Yale University and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services -- a measure challenged by seven hospital systems.

Now that the uncertainty has cleared, healthcare organizations have even more incentive to metamorphose themselves into accountable care organizations aligned with the CMS Shared Savings Program.