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MedNetwoRx Changes |
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 Quarterly Newsletter
Q4, 2009 |
Dear Greg,
MedNetwoRx wishes you and your families Happy Holidays and a safe and prosperous New Year!
As our year comes toward a close, we are excited about all of the changes that have been made. In addition, we have several new initiatives and partnerships on the horizon, it is truly an exciting time for us all.
-MedNetwoRx
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Patient Confidentiality 2.0
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As reported by ABC news and WebMD, the advent of Web 2.0 has caused additional security holes for medical IT departments to fill. In an experiment performed by one Dr. Katherine Chretien, a reported "...13 percent of US medical schools have reported that their students have leaked confidential information about patients via blogs or social networking websites."
In Dr. Chretien's experiment, ABC News reports that, "Her team also documented unsavory - but not necessarily illegal - web posts at 60 percent of the 78 medical schools that participated, such as posting photos containing drug and alcohol use, or using profanity or risqué language."
While this type of talk isn't a new phenomenon, it can be more readily managed then the so-called 'Elevator Talk' as steps can be taken to remove the forum for these types
 of breaches. We have the technology to block access to inappropriate sites on the Internet, including social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, thereby removing even the temptation to share confidential information in the workplace.
It is very important that all of the personnel in your practice know not to post any patient information in e-mails, blogs, social networks or anywhere on the web. If there is a need for electronic communications between patients and your office, secure Web Patient Portals can be employed for the sending and receiving of confidential data.
Call our friendly support staff at 866.619.4357 for more information on any of these topics or see last quarter's newsletter article on Red Flag Rules for more information on the legal aspects of patient confidentiality.
To read more about this issue click on any of the following links:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Health/medical-students-leak-patient-info-facebook/story?id=8650491
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TechTips: Speed up Your Computer's Startup Time
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The Microsoft Windows Startup Folder and your boot-up time If you've been using your machine for quite a while now and have seen the startup time of your computer get slower over time, chances are you may have some unnecessary things in the Windows
Startup folder. A regular audit of the contents of this folder will help you make sure that only the most important things to you are loading when you start your computer. Commonly this folder will contain a few applications that you would like to have startup when your computer launches.
Most members of the Tech Support team have a similar
Startup folder to the Picture below:
What this means is that every time we login to the machine, these three applications will launch. These applications aren't the only thing that launch when the computer starts up, but we'll get to that in a minute.
The location of the folder differs between operating systems, but it can usually be found under the
Start Menu in the
All Programs section.
Anything in this folder will automatically attempt to launch when you login to the computer. This includes programs (or shortcuts to them), text files, or any other types of files will attempt to start as though you had double-clicked them. You may have already found some items you want to delete. Simply right-click on the shortcut and choose delete from the menu. This should eliminate the application from the startup process.
If you find that a program that is slowing you down isn't represented in this folder, it may be contained in the Startup section of the
MSConfig utility. If you need to remove something from this, you'll need to call the helpdesk.
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ePrescribe Enrollment
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Miss the e-prescribing deadline for 2009?
Not to worry! For those of you who missed the deadline for becoming an "eligible provider" for the e-prescribe initiative in 2009, the New Year will provide you with a second chance to qualify!! The 2010 incentive is the same as 2009 - 2% - and there is no better time than now to prepare to meet the requirements, and begin e-prescribing on January 1st!
Allscripts will continue to offer their free e-prescribing solution throughout the tenure of the initiative. To enroll, go to
https://erxnowregistration.allscripts.com/Home.aspx, and in the middle column under Register Now, click on the Enroll Electronically button. The enrollment process is very efficient, and you should be e-prescribing in a matter of a day or so! There are recorded how-to video tutorials within the application, so even training your staff is easy!
NOTE: The initial enrollment of your practice will require the participation of a physician. This physician must be immediately available to you during the initial enrollment process as Allscripts will ask a series of personal questions to confirm their identity. Once the clinic enrollment is processed, the designated system administrator will be able to enroll the other physicians and staff, and complete the set up.
To make the e-prescribing easier and more efficient for you, MedNetworx can assist you with a free, one-time patient download from your PM system into the eRx program. Or better yet, you can purchase a continuous patient interface for a very low monthly charge. Either will reduce or eliminate the need to perform dual registration of your patients into the eRx application.
For more information, or if you have questions on how to get started, please call our support desk at 972-892-7245.
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Autumn Data Migratory Patterns
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 Our ancestors likely migrated as food supplies dwindled, birds tend to do the same to avoid inclement weather, and now your personal data is on the move as well. You may have noticed a set of emails that detailed a complete shutdown of our services over a weekend recently, indicating that we were moving all of our physical servers from one location to another. This process has occurred for various reasons, but primarily to provide a better quality of service to the most important part of our business, you.
The new Datacenter offers several advantages over the previous configuration, including more reliable network connections, a more easily managed infrastructure, and a much better server environment. This will mean greater data reliability, more efficient management, as well as increased space to expand our capabilities. With this change to our company we hope to improve the way that we help you and consequently how you help your patients.
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Double Standards in Healthcare
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 It's difficult to find many people in the United States who are satisfied with our healthcare system as it is today. Patients complain about the cost and extended wait times in the doctor's office, only to experience reduced time actually spent with their doctors. We seem to all recognize that the system has made it much more difficult to get the care we need at a price we can afford.
The problem is that the system has evolved to one where the balance between cost and access is impossible to maintain, especially in today's economic chaos and rising unemployment rate. Forty-seven million Americans have no health insurance or coverage, and approximately 25 million are underinsured. That means they can't access 'quality' healthcare.
Virtually no one debates that Healthcare Reform is necessary. The debate is more about what and how, not if. See what two New York clinics have done to cope with the Managed Care issue:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33863680/ns/health-health_care/?ns=health-health_care
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H1N1 Influenza Medicare Claims
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Medicare has issued instructions for filing claims for the H1N1 influenza vaccination. These instructions can be found on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) website, or by browsing to the following URL:
In brief, Medicare will pay for the administration of the H1N1influenza vaccine, but it will not pay for the vaccine itself. The ICD-9 diagnosis code to be used is V04.81, which is the same diagnosis code used for the regular influenza vaccine.
Two new CPT® codes have been defined for the purpose of documenting and claiming the administration of the H1N1influenza vaccination. The code G9141 is used for the administration of the vaccination. The code G9142 is used for vaccine itself.
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BrownBag Luncheon Schedule
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As we near the end of the 2009, I have to say it has been a whirlwind of a year. In looking back at 2009, we have been successful in offering up to all of you additional learning opportunities with the Centricity Practice Management line through our brown bags. What we haven't done is a full User Group Meeting.
December 8th
User Group Meeting (approx: 90 min)
We miss all of your faces and would like to have a User Group Meeting on
12/8/2009 in our
B-125 Training Room in lieu of the December Brown Bag. During this meeting, we will share some useful information for closing out Centricity for 2009 and more but we also want to look in the direction of 2010.
Please join us at our User Group to hear some Centricity news and take a look at the Aprima PMR. The meeting will begin promptly at 11:30 and last until about 1:00 PM. We plan to begin the demo shortly after our announcements. We will provide lunch to all that attend, but please RSVP early since we have limited space. To RSVP, simply email
Holly Adams and include 'USER GROUP ANNOUNCEMENT' in the subject line.
The Stimulus program has driven a lot of interest in the EMR implementation in our practices, so we want to provide you an opportunity to look at our newest addition of EMRs to the MedNetworx product offerings. We are very excited about the opportunity before us to offer the Aprima PMR (integrated solution or stand alone) to our practices that are interested in implementing an EMR in their practice in the future. This product can be implemented for a great price (probably not much more than you currently pay for Centricity PM alone)! How exciting is that?!
We have also upgraded many of our offices to the Centricity Practice Solution product (CPS). Though we had an aggressive schedule to begin the year, we found it would best suit our customers to not proceed with such a schedule. We worked together with our systems group to create a schedule that allows the offices as little disruption to their routine as possible. We still have several offices to upgrade and will focus additional time on this at the beginning of 2010. The remainder of 2009 will be focused on upgrading our infrastructure. We will contact each office about 30 days prior to their scheduled upgrade to allow ample time for you to plan for this upgrade.
We have also helped a few of our offices implement Electronic Statements in their practice. Electronic Statements are a time and money saving option that all practices should explore. The average cost with labor and supplies for a statement is approximately $1.36. With an electronic statement, that cost can be cut significantly to about $0.65 for a one page statement. We have two companies that provide this service for us, Expressbill and eTactics. We have recently promoted the latter because they have additional offerings to help make the practice more efficient. If we can help you with adding this product to your practice, please don't hesitate to contact us. There is more information on the web if you would like to explore this on your own at
www.etacticsinc.com or
www.emdeon.com
The 2010 ICD -9 Codes are available for you to load in your database. If you are not familiar, or just have forgotten how you go about bringing in the new codes for your practice/specialty, below are the instructions:
CPOPM04:
- Open Administration
- Double click on the Load folder (along the left side of screen)
- Highlight ICD-9 codes
- Fill in the appropriate criteria (you can select descriptions A to Z if you want all the codes or you can search for ranges under codes)
- Click Search - all the codes will have check marks in front of them (you can uncheck the ones you do not want)
- Check all the specialties on the right side of the screen that apply to your practice
- Click Load to load all of the codes with checks
- The load process could take several minutes
- Click Yes to finish.
CPS06:
- Open Administration
- Double click on the Codes folder (along the left side of screen)
- Double click on the Billing System folder
- Click Load ICD-9 codes
- Fill in the appropriate criteria (you can select descriptions A to Z if you want all the codes or you can search for ranges under codes)
- Click Search - all the codes will have check marks in front of them (you can uncheck the ones you do not want)
- Check all the specialties on the right side of the screen that apply to your practice
- Click Load to load all of the codes with check marks
- The load process could take several minutes
- Click Yes to finish.
As we end the year 2009, we are preparing for a busy and productive 2010 when practices engage in the adoption of Electronic Health Records. We have several solutions to recommend, and will work with you to find the solution that best fits your clinic and budget. Please call 972-892-7200 for information.
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TechTips:
Should I Reboot my Computer?
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The very first troubleshooting step in any computer related problem is to reboot the computer after collecting initial data, that is to say:
- Determine the symptoms of the issue
- Restart the troubled computer
While this is good for solving problems, what about the other 80% +/- of the time when your computer is behaving normally? You may ask yourself from time to time, "Should I reboot this machine, or just leave well enough alone?" The answer is an overwhelming 'Yes, you should reboot!' and I will briefly explain why.
Your computer (for those who don't already know) is a very complicated set of instructions, housed inside a set of devices designed solely to interpret, carry out, and store these instructions. With this in mind, when your computer is in a powered-off state, it is essentially just a pile of parts. Sure, all of your information is safe and secure on the hard drive stored in magnetic memory, but the rest of the machine isn't going to do anything until you turn it back on.
This is where the 'Bootstrapping' process comes in. We have since shortened the name in modern language to 'booting' or 'bootup', but the process is essentially the same.
The
Bootstrap process is a technique by which a simple computer program activates a more complicated system of programs. In the start up process of a computer system, a small program such as BIOS, initializes and tests that hardware, peripherals and external memory devices are connected, then loads a program from one of them and passes control to it, thus allowing the loading of larger programs, such as an operating system.
When you boot your computer, you are requesting that the machine start from a basic set of instructions (the bootloader) and then launch the operating system (Windows XP or Vista in most cases) into a known condition. This will allow the machine to get a fresh start and some much needed rest in the brief moment that the system is powered down. The reboot process also allows all of the stored information in the temporary memory storage (commonly known as RAM) to be emptied as it can't hold information when it has no power going to it.
Now that we know a little about the process and why it can be a good thing, you may be asking yourself "How often should I do this, reboot thing?" We recommend that you reboot your computer nightly. This gives your machine regular rest and a fresh start every day. It also allows for the newest software updates to be installed at a regular interval, preventing down time and hopefully extending your computer's lifespan.
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Catch and Release Program: Barracuda Tossed Back
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 After the aforementioned Datacenter migration, we have elected to eliminate our Barracuda Spamwall device. Its performance in the past has not met with our expectations and we have put a software based replacement in its place.
Our new champion of email defense is SpamTitan, a product of Copperfasten Technologies. It utilizes multiple anti-virus and spam detection engines to detect infections early and deal with them as quickly as possible.
A web-based interface will be in place soon, so that you can manage your personal settings as well as review emails that have been captured and quarantined. Please talk to our friendly Helpdesk staff for any further details.
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Aprima and MednetwoRx Partner to Provide a Single-Application EHR and PM Solution
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Announced officially on September 30, 2009, MedNetwoRx has partnered with Aprima, manufacturers of the Aprima Medical Software (EHR) and practice management (PM) systems for medical practices. MedNetwoRx now offers remote hosted access to the single-application EHR and PM solution as well as co-located data backups to ensure reliability and stability. As a reseller for the application, MedNetwoRx will be able to determine the most cost effective Aprima solution for you and your practice. "The agreement with MednetwoRx opens the door to a whole new aspect of data management and level of technical expertise for our physicians and for Aprima," said Michael Nissenbaum, President and CEO of Aprima.
 Aprima's unique, template-free design enables providers to follow their own protocols. Its adaptive learning feature speeds adoption and deployment and its single database design affords users with the fastest access to clinical and financial data. Aprima's flexible pricing plan makes sense for everyone from a solo rural practitioner to a multi-specialty urban practice. Mark Johnson, MedNetworx President states, "Aprima's EHR is fully functional, easily deployable and offers all the bells and whistles for a great price. The opportunity to partner with Aprima makes sense for us and for our customers and potential customers. It will help physician practices meet ARRA guidelines along with providing them choices that can relieve the burden of data storage."
If you would like to schedule a demonstration of the Aprima product, please call 972-892-7245. |
TechTips: HOLIDAY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
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Not satisfied with simply making your working life easier and more manageable, we are now making your Holiday time a little sweeter. Here is a special TechTips Holiday edition: Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Ingredients:
(Recipe may be halved)
2 cups butter 4 cups flour 2 tsp. soda 2 cups sugar 5 cups blended oatmeal** 24 oz. chocolate chips  2 cups brown sugar 1 tsp. salt 1 8 oz. Hershey Bar (finely grated) 4 eggs 2 tsp. baking powder 2 tsp. vanilla Optional
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 375.
- **Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder.
- Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, grated chocolate and nuts, if included.
- Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.
- Remove and let stand til warm.
- Enjoy with your family or special someone this coming Holiday.
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We have enjoyed helping you and your patients this year, Happy Holidays!
Sincerely,
MedNetwoRx
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