NYC REACH Meaningful Use Seminar on February 17 in Manhattan

Members of NYC REACH are invited to attend the Meaningful Use Overview Seminar on Thursday, February 17 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm at 161 William Street in Manhattan. For more information and to register, please visit: http://museminar.eventbrite.com/.


Physicians in New York City now have two options to become members:


Full membership: For $600 per year, primary care providers will receive discounts on preferred EHRs and on-site training at their practice to learn how to use the system.

Limited membership: Any NYC physician can join as a limited member for no fee and pay $50 per person to attend a Meaningful Use Seminar to learn about the incentive program for EHR users.

MSSNY Hosts Educational Programs Statewide on EHR Incentive

A series of six educational programs, entitled What Doctors and Office Managers Need to Know to Collect Available Money from Incentive Programs in 201,1 will be offered across the state in February. These programs will provide much needed information to physicians and their office staff on “meaningful use” and the federal incentive programs. Physicians will learn the necessary information to incorporate technology into their practices, learn how to access available funding for the transition. Physicians will also with MSSNY-vetted EHR vendors. The agenda will allow participants to view EHR vendor demonstrations and talk with experts on available incentives.



Tuesday, February 8: Melville Huntington Hilton
Wednesday, February 9: New York City NY Academy of Medicine
Thursday, February 10: Albany Marriott on Wolf Road
Tuesday, February 15: Syracuse Doubletree Inn at Carrier Circle
Wednesday, February 16: Rochester RIT Conference Center
Thursday, February 17: Buffalo Adam's MarkHotel


For more information, times and agenda, please click here.

HIMSS ACO Webinar Series

HIMSS launches a new webinar series with tomorrow's
webinar on accountable care:


Accountable Care Organizations:
An Introduction to the Impact on Health IT

Wednesday, January 19
10:00 am Pacific | 11:00 am Mountain | 12:00 pm Central | 1:00 pm Eastern

Featuring:


Randy Thomas, FHIMSS
Vice President, Integrated Product Strategy & Planning
Premier healthcare alliance



Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) facilitate coordination and cooperation among providers to improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries and reduce unnecessary costs. ACOs have dramatic implications – on how providers will be assessed and paid, as well as on the strategic and structural ramifications for providers. Join Randy Thomas as she provides an overview of ACOs and their impact on Health IT.

Register today!
FREE for HIMSS members $79.00 for non-members.
Not a HIMSS member? Join today to take advantage of all the great member benefits, including registration fee discounts!

First Medicaid EHR Incentive Program Payments Issued


Registration opened on Mon Jan 3 for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, and Medicaid payments have already been issued by two states!



On Wed Jan 5, the first payments under the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program were issued by Oklahoma and Kentucky. Kentucky processed payment to the University of Kentucky’s teaching hospital, University of Kentucky Healthcare. The first payment, for $2.86-million, was one-third of the hospital’s overall expected amount for participating in the program.



Oklahoma issued payments to two physicians at the Gastorf Family Clinic of Durant for $21,250 each, for having adopted certified EHRs. These incentive payments for the adoption of certified EHR technology are federally-funded under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.



For additional information on the these actions by Oklahoma and Kentucky, please visit their websites at http://www.okhca.org/EHR-incentive and http://chfs.ky.gov/dms/EHR.htm. For more information on the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive Programs, please visit CMS’s EHR website at http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms.

National Provider Teleconference on Preparing for ICD-10 Implementation in 2011

Wed Jan 12, 1-3pm EST



The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will host a national provider teleconference on “Preparing for ICD-10 Implementation in 2011.” Subject matter experts will review basic information on the transition to ICD-10 and discuss implementation planning and preparation strategies for this year. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentations.



Target Audience: Medical coders, physician office staff, provider billing staff, health records staff, vendors, educators, system maintainers, and all Medicare fee-for-service providers



The following topics will be discussed:

Planning for transition to ICD-10 – “A call to action”
ICD-10 implementation for services provided on and after Tue Oct 1, 2013 – No grace periods or delays
§ Date of service implementation requirements

§ Tools for converting codes – 2011 General Equivalence Mappings (GEMs)

§ Partial freeze of ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 code updates, except for new technologies and diseases

§ Use of unspecified codes in both ICD-9-CM and ICD-10

§ Updating payment and coverage policies for ICD-10

§ Differences between ICD-9-CM and ICD-10

§ Internal planning groups and organizational strategies

§ Awareness, educational strategies, and assessing training needs

§ Implementation plan development and impact assessment

§ Determining vendor readiness

§ Coding gap analysis – What needs to be done for your coding staff

§ Assessing quality of medical record documentation

§ Developing an ICD-10 budget

§ Consequences of poor preparation



Registration will close at 1pm EST on Tue Jan 11 or when available space has been filled; no exceptions will be made, so please register early. For more information and to register for this informative session, please visit