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 Quarterly Newsletter Q3, 2009 |
Dear,
Welcome to the second MedNetwoRx Quarterly Newsletter. We hope that we receive as high of praise for our second time around.
In this issue we have more how-to's for our DIY [Do-It-Yourself] people and new updates to our services provided to you, the most important part of our business. This is all on top of the same quality of Medical Industry journalism that we provided in the last issue.
If you get a chance, please let us know how we can improve this little periodical of ours. We are always looking for ways to improve ourselves and the services that we provide you, so don't be shy.
-MedNetwoRx
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Health IT Stimulus Update |
Since Y2K, there has not been a public issue or event that has impacted healthcare as profoundly as the HIT Act of 2009, signed by President Obama back in February. This Act ignited the fire that is consuming the health care and IT industries right now, and each of you needs to be informed about what the implications are for your practice.
In order to qualify for the stimulus payments over the next five years, the bill requires that physicians demonstrate utilization of their "certified" EHR solution in a manner determined to be "meaningful use". Defining and refining these terms is the primary work of the HIT Policy Committee (Health Information Technology), facing a year-end deadline to complete their definition. It is critical that physicians understand what "meaningful use" requires, because without compliance to those measures and standards, they will not be able to enjoy the stimulus payments that have been allocated for them.
Take the challenge to schedule time to educate yourself! Each month the HIT Policy Committee meets to further define "meaningful use" and "certified product", and afterward a release is issued for public review. You may attend the live meeting via an online webinar, or if you prefer, you may view a recorded webcast within a few days of the meeting. The next committee meeting is August 14.
The focus of the July 16th meeting was the development of the first quality measures that physicians will be required to track as part of a demonstration of "meaningful use" of a "certified product", and in which year each measure is required. This is a significant announcement, and the list of measures is extensive. Although there is not much detail outlined as to how those measures must be tracked and reported, it is clear that this development is a direct response to the public comment submitted to the committee. The committee received overwhelming public consensus that the requirements for demonstrating "meaningful use" should be driven by quality of care, and that they should include measures already being tracked by current PQRI indicators.
The following link is an excellent, original source of information, containing the links to the live and recorded webinars of these monthly meetings.
http://healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=1269&parentname=CommunityPage&parentid=13&mode=2&in_hi_userid=10779&cached=true
Although there are numerous other online resources devoted to expounding on what the new information might mean, please be careful to verify all "interpretations" against the information on this official website.
Please continue to check the newsletter for additional updates.
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EMR Requires Dilligence
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As in all professions, security and privacy of your own as
well as your clients' personal information is paramount. This is
especially true in the medical industry. Not only is identity theft a concern, there are
several governing laws attempting to prohibit such information from being
leaked or captured by would be identity thieves. With the push towards
the national EMR system, the consciousness of personal informational security
is growing.
Take, for instance, the case of one Texas resident and the
theft of his personal information by a Southern Nevada drifter. After
acquiring the personal information of the Texan, the drifter racked up in
excess of $20,000 in medical bills which is still in the process of being disputed
(see the Las Vegas Sun article).
However, this is not the largest part of the problem.
The two individuals now share mixed critical medical
information that has been passed back to Texas, such as current prescriptions
and allergies, etc. While properly guarded, the proposed national EMR
system will be able to simplify the process of seeing a specialist and verifying
drug allergies at a moment's notice. However without diligence by all
HealthCare professionals involved in a patient's care, the level of damage
could far exceed simple monetary damages.
Recently the AMA has offered guidance on how to deal with a
breach in patient information if it has been detected by a physician or their
staff.
The new AMA guidelines ask physicians to:
- Ensure patients are properly informed of the
breach.
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Follow ethically appropriate procedures for
disclosure.
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Support responses to security breaches that
place the interests of the patient above those of physician, medical practice
or institution.
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Provide information enabling patients to
diminish potential adverse consequences of the breach of personal health
information.
Click here to read more about the AMA guidlines
We work very hard at MedNetwoRx to ensure that your and your patients' private information remains that way. Some of the techniques that we employ include password protection on files and EMR/EHR software systems, employee verification processes, and strict HIPAA compliancy. Please make sure that you are helping us keep this information safe, by not leaving workstations unlocked and unguarded, changing your passwords on a regular basis, and not emailing anything sensitive through public email systems.
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BrownBag Luncheon Schedule
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Below is the 2009
3rd Quarter Centricity Practice Management Brown Bag schedule. Look
for the email reminders about a week before the meeting to reserve your seat!
Aug 6th
Ideal
Imaging Demonstration
Sept 3rd
Using
Fee Schedules, including setup and using the LOAD Feature
If you wish to preregister for the next Brown Bag luncheon please click the image below:
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TechTips: Sortable Columns and Microsoft Outlook
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While some of this information may be old hat, our Support Engineers have noticed a recent trend in questions concerning missing or overly large Outlook inboxes. Most of the issues noted in this recent trend could be resolved by simple
maintenance or organization of incoming mail. The first of these organizational steps is understanding and using the sortable columns at the top of you inbox mail browser.
The default sort direction for any inbox is in order from the most recent to the oldest received email. This can be modified with a simple left click of your mouse, which will reverse the order the column is sorted in. The order is indicated by the arrow in the title of the column header as shown below.
Notice that after the left click the older emails are now listed at the top.
This method works for any of the remaining columns in Outlook and in most other Microsoft applications with the notable exception of Excel. So experiment with different columns in Outlook and you should be able to  sort through your emails faster and manage them much more efficiently. Remember as always if you have a question just call our friendly Technical Support Engineers at our main helpline 866.619.4357
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HIPPA Compliancy - Key Phrase and Personal Information
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In anticipation of HIPAA changes to come with the stricter policies governing the Medical IT industry, we at MedNetwoRx have decided upon a Code Word/Identification Number system for user verification. This will add an additional layer of security for your personal information as well as your patients. The system is not yet in place but is well into the planning stages and more information will be made public as this progresses.
During this preparation for the coming security changes the MedNetwoRx Techincal Support Engineers on our helpline will be asking for additional information during calls. No, they haven't all suddenly developed amnesia and forgotten who their favorite customers are, they simply are verifying information about accounts. Please bear with us in the interim while this new system is put in place.
We hope that you find these Security changes a welcome addition to the array of safegaurds in place.
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Add-on
Services
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Did you know that in addition to hosting and supporting
your practice management and electronic health records software applications, MedNetwoRx
also offers other products and services designed to enhance and improve your
processes and create greater efficiencies in your medical office. Please contact us if you would like more
information or demonstrations of the products and services listed below.
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Etactics - www.etactics.com -
Electronic Patient Statement services
- Medfusion - www.medfusion.com - Patient
webportal services. Please see the
additional information contained in this newsletter on Medfusion.
- EDInsight - www.practiceinsight.com - Secure real-time claims management
solutions
- Callpointe - www.callpointe.com - Automated Appointment Reminder Service
- Telepatient - www.telepatient.com - Automated Appointment Reminder Service
- Eprescribing -https://erxnowregistration.allscripts.com/Home.aspx - Allscripts ePrescribe™ is a FREE web-based, standalone
e-prescribing application
- Practice Management System Audits
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Billing Services
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E-RX
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Last summer, CMS authorized the
Medicare Incentives for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) to promote the
adoption and use of ePrescribing systems. The program began January 1, 2009 and provides incentives
for eligible professionals who are "successful" ePrescribers. We
have contacted our practices to make sure you are aware of the ePrescribe
incentive that is available and offer options on how to become a "successful"
ePrescriber.
Part of that success is to make sure you are tracking your
progress to ensure you are going to reach your goal to receive your incentive
payment. eCeno users can use OLAP to track each physician's
progress. Please contact the help desk to have a clinical solutions
team member answer any questions regarding e-prescribe reports.
Remember, per physician you must report on 50% of your
Medicare patients who are being seen for an eligible e-prescribe visit
this year.
The patient encounter must include one of
the following codes to be eligible for the incentive. 90801,
90802, 90804, 90805, 90806, 90807, 90808, 90809, 92002, 92004, 92012, 92014,
96150, 96151, 96152, 99201, 99202, 99203, 99204, 99205, 99211, 99212, 99213,
99214, 99215, 99241, 99242, 99243, 99244, 99245, G0101, G0108, G0109. Refills
do not count toward meeting your incentive.
For those practices not participating, it may be too late to
receive this  year's money. However, you can prepare for the same
stimulus next year and avoid the penalties that will be begin in 2012 for not
participating in E-RX. The fee reduction is
prospective. Providers have to electronically prescribe by a date TBD in 2010
to be sure their fees are not reduced in 2012. In the graph you can see both the incentive percentages along with the penalty.
If you wish to prepare for next year, please contact
MedNetwoRx and we will share the many tools we have for setting up your
practice to make the transition to the world of e-prescribing as smooth as
possible.
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Congratulations Cape Coral Eye Center Named Best Optical Vision Center 2009
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Cape Coral Eye Center doctor's and staff are thrilled to be named Best Optical Vision Center for the tenth consecutive year, and also to be honored with 3 additional awards during the 19th annual "Best of Southwest Florida" competition held by the News-Press newspaper and News-Press.com. Cape Coral Eye Center's Medical Director, Dr. Farrell C. "Toby" Tyson, received honors in the category for Best Eye Doctor/Eye Surgeon. The center's Chief Audiologist, Dr. Karen Major, was named Best Audiologist while also receiving an extraordinary number of unexpected write-in votes to earn runner up honors for "Best Hearing Aids." "We're very pleased to be recognized for our exceptional Doctors and team members," says Dr. Tyson. "All of the training, all of the hard work, and all of the effort we put into being our best becomes that much more worthwhile when we are recognized for it by our patients and the community -- this is a true honor for all of us." Along with Dr. Tyson and his management team, over 200 Southwest Florida businesspeople gathered in Fort Myers, Florida for the July Awards Reception. Over 100,000 votes in 75 categories were cast and winners and runners up were recognized at the event. |
Meditech Access Enhancement |
Are you a current MedNetwoRx customer that accesses Medical City's Meditech system? If so, we have a new connection we would like to introduce to you. Instead of using the SecureID card that you use currently, we can set you up so that you simply login to Meditech through Internet Explorer. If you are interested in getting more information or getting this set up in your office, please call the MedNetwoRx Support line at 972-892-7245, or email helpdesk@mednetworx.com to create a case.
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Viruses, Malware, and Michael Jackson |
Threats
Every day brings new threats to you and your computer. According to a report issued by one of the leading internet security consulting groups in the world, Symantec, "...an average of 1,919 new websites per day harboring  malware and other potentially unwanted programs such as spyware and adware..." are found.
With this many new threats appearing daily, security has become paramount with virtually every Information Technology company in the world. A recent increase in activity this year, a 67% increase in malware and a 14% increase in spam mail since Q1, (according to the same report) has driven a global heightening of security awareness.
In this vein we at MedNetwoRx endeavor not only to keep your machines clean, but also to educate on the common symptoms and preventative measures available to everyone. We do this as a courtesy but also to help wage war on these would-be attackers who threaten to hold back the progress of our global informational community.
Spam
 Spam is a collective term for the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately (wikipedia: spam_electronic). While the origin of the term is rather comical, (see Monty Python's Flying Circus: Spam skit) the frequency occurrence and contents of email spam are far from humorous. While the majority of spam is mostly harmless to your computer it is also a likely attack point for some forms of viral and Malware infections.
One way to fight spam-based infections is to be able to identify a message as spam and know to avoid opening it, this method is fairly reliable unless a computer that contains your email address has been infected. This way an infected machine could send you an infected email from an individual that you know and trust. So this gives us our first rule:
1. Inspect the email before opening. Know your sender and verify the subject.
This ensures that you won't fall prey to the blatant ruses used by groups like '419 scammers' and 'phishers', who attempt to solicit information from you by pretending that you have won money or some other reason to verify your identity. This will also protect you from most known forms of email-based viral and malware attacks, but not all.
This rule can then be backed up by anti-spam devices such as the Barracuda SpamWall appliance that we have in place to prevent a large amount of universal spam that comes in daily.
Web-hype
Spamfighter.com in response to the recent news about the death of Michael Jackson, said that "...events that generate a lot of interest in people and natural calamities quickly followed by malware-embedded scams using titles-based on these events. Every time a natural catastrophe befallen or news about a celebrity proliferate in media, malware writers quickly capitalize on the situation and launch attacks to make money.
"Similarly, malware authors crafted spam based on events like 2005 London transport bombing attack, 2004 Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the execution of Saddam Hussein to install malware on users' computers."
We find this to be true as well, as with the recent events we have seen and influx of malware and viral incidents. While it is difficult to blame them specifically on the event, their timing is very suspect. This gives us our second rule:
2. Police your browsing habits. Before visiting a new site, research it.
Social networking sites and public domain blogs are popular places for the authors of malware to distribute their infection programs commonly referred to as 'downloaders.' The most common delivery method is something called and 'attack-ad', otherwise known as a pop-up. The best method for dealing with these is to look for the standard way of closing any window on your computer: the red 'X' in the upper right hand corner of the window (upper left for Mac).
A good rule of thumb to measure what websites are OK for the work environment is this: If it seems like it may be work inappropriate it probably is.
While some employers may simply not want you visiting sites like these because they are timesinks, your tech support staff may have placed a site on the same blocked list because it is a known attack site. In short, if you are blocked from a website at work, there is likely a good reason for it.
As with the previous section for spam, this rule is also backed up by a device designed to prevent an external intrusion and an internal breach. The device we utilize is called Content Protector. It is designed to block internet protocols that are not on the safe or 'whitelist'.
Symptoms
No defense is perfect. The only way to ensure that a computer never gets a virus is to disconnect it from the internet and lock it in a desk drawer, throw away the key, bury the desk, and turn the land into a protected landmark so no one can excavate. Therefore, it is possible that even after following our suggestions and being protected by the latest and greatest hardware and software preventative measures, your machine may get infected. If yours does, it would be valuable to know what the infection looks like on your machine.
The first thing that any computer service professional looks for are changes in established patterns. This can be anything from general slowness, abnormal waiting times when connecting to websites, excessive pop-ups, or even simple things like missing or renamed files. We recommend recording and reporting any abnormal behavior to your support staff, even if it isn't us. If you report the problem early then it is possible you support staff may be able to eliminate the cause of the infection before it progresses.
With your help, we can ensure a safe working environment for you and your patients.
If you want to see more of the sources of our information feel free to click on one of the links below:
http://www.spamfighter.com/News-12679-Google-Issues-Alert-against-Malware-Embedded-Mails.htm
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/symantec-announces-june-and-q2-2009-messagelabs-intelligence-report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)#Origin_of_the_term
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We hope you enjoyed this newsletter and found it informative.
Sincerely,
MedNetwoRx |
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