Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) didn't necessarily intend to revolutionize health care, but that's exactly what happened. Health care has changed dramatically since Steve Jobs first stood in front of an audience to introduce first the iPhone then later the iPad. Much of that change can be directly attributed to Apple.

Source: 3D4Medical.

Apples and doctors It used to be said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That could still be applicable, but the opposite is true for doctors and Apple. Physicians love their iPhones and iPads.

A study by Manhattan Research in 2011 found that 75% of physicians owned at least one Apple product. Vitera Healthcare's 2012 survey of health-care professionals backed up this high number. The company's study found that 60% of respondents used an iPhone and 45% owned an iPad.

The real revolution, though, has come from how physicians and other health-care professionals are using Apple's devices. Mobile applications opened the door for clinicians to instantly access a world of medical information at the point of care.

For example, WebMD's (NASDAQ: WBMD) Medscape application allows physicians to check drug interactions, look up information about procedures, and see medical news updates on the fly. Medscape ranks first among the most frequently downloaded medical apps for iPhones and iPads.

Yale University's School of Medicine even did away with paper materials for training upcoming physicians. The school provided iPads and wireless keyboards to all of its medical students. Other schools followed suit.

Health eVillages' experience underscores the transformational impact of Apple's technology. The not-for-profit organization provides mobile health technology to medical professionals in areas such as Kenya and Haiti. Lives have been saved that otherwise would have been lost, thanks to doctors in remote areas who use an iPad to access needed information.

Use of Apple's products goes beyond serving as a reference tool, though. An application that allows radiologists to view MRIs as well as CT, PET, and SPECT scans on iPhones and iPads received FDA approval in 2011. More recently, the FDA cleared the way for privately held Welch Allyn to connect its portable ophthalmoscope to an iPhone for doctors to view retinal images using the company's app.

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How Apple Accidentally Revolutionized Health Care

Cohen "Can #39;t Answer" what will happen to health care costs next year

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Cohen "Can't Answer" what will happen to health care costs next year - Video

OAK BROOK, IL--(Marketwired - April 26, 2013) - Recognized as a national leader in promoting environmental stewardship through its innovative programs, Advocate Health Care has received the System for Change award from Practice Greenhealth, a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental responsibility and best practices by healthcare organizations.

The System for Change Award recognizes health systems that are working cohesively to gather data, set system goals, benchmark, and share successes in environmental performance. This is the fourth year in a row, Advocate, the largest health system in Illinois, has earned the recognition.

"Advocate's focus on environmental accountability has become part of our culture," said Mary Larsen, manager of environmental stewardship at Advocate Health Care. "Our effort to make the most efficient use of our resources ultimately benefits the patients and families we serve."

Ten Advocate hospitals also earned recognition this year receiving awards in variety of categories. Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital and Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center earned the Environmental Leadership Circle award, Practice Greenhealth's highest honor.

Environmental stewardship aligns with Advocate's mission and values. Most recently, Advocate was privileged to receive the Governor's Sustainability award from the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center.

The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards were presented in Boston, April 25, at the CleanMed Conference & Exposition -- a national environmental conference for leaders in health care sustainability.

About Advocate Health Care

Advocate Health Care, named among the nation's Top 15 health systems named by Truven Analytics in 2013, is the largest health system in Illinois and one of the largest health care providers in the Midwest. Advocate operates more than 250 sites of care, including 10 acute care hospitals, the state's largest integrated children's network, five Level I trauma centers (the state's highest designation in trauma care), two Level II trauma centers, one of the area's largest home health care companies and one of the region's largest medical groups. Advocate Health Care trains more primary care physicians and residents at its four teaching hospitals than any other health system in the state. As a not-for-profit, mission-based health system affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ, Advocate contributed $571 million in charitable care and services to communities across Chicagoland and Central Illinois in 2011.

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Advocate Health Care Honored for Environmental Efforts for a 4th Consecutive Year

(MoneyWatch) Health care costs continue to rise. But health care employment? Not necessarily. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, the industry, which has traditionally offered many well-paying jobs for those without extensive education, is seeing the "gradual disappearance of semiskilled occupations that don't require a college degree."

The cause is cost-cutting and, for administrative positions, increasing reliance on computer automation for greater efficiency. Those trends are likely only to continue and expand as the Affordable Care Act comes into force. And given the size of the U.S. health care industry, that could have a major impact on the economy.

The health care law had two broad goals: to make coverage more broadly available and to bring down costs. Anyone who has paid a health insurance premium or bill from a doctor or hospital understands the need of the latter.

According to the World Bank, U.S. health care spending as a percentage of gross domestic product is close to the highest in the world, leading all industrialized countries at 17.9 percent in 2011.

Health care reform, a thorny and difficult subject worldwide, faces many hurdles in the U.S. A major one has been that the health care system is a collection of cottage industries, with doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, testing facilities and other service providers having operated independently for decades.

A move toward electronic medical records will allow information, test results, radiology images and other critical information to be more readily available to care givers, speeding decision-making and action. But greater efficiency in communications, whatever improvements that brings in quality of care, also means fewer workers, as more processing of data, billing and other services is automated.

It also means that medical tests, procedures and other activities might not need to be repeated as frequently. Under the current health care structure -- which generally pays for procedures, not for outcomes -- greater efficiency amounts to lower spending. And lower spending can reduce economic activity.

In other words, shrinking health care spending could have an effect on GDP and the size of the economy. For example, health care costs have risen more slowly than GDP.

That will help the deficit, as government is a big payer of health care costs. But the economy also could feel the pinch, as well as workers who once helped make the system work around its costly inefficiencies.

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Falling health care costs come at a price

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Are American consumers ready to take control of their health care decisions?

Health care reform virtually demands they do, but evidence is mounting that consumers are unprepared for the changes scheduled to hit the marketplace next year.

Aflac , the Columbus, Ga.-based insurance mainstay, has taken the pulse of the health care market and how and if U.S. adults are ready for what's coming.

What the company found should be alarming to health care companies, government officials, and above all, U.S. health care customers.

According to fresh data from the its Workforces Report, released on Thursday:

Maybe that's why Aflac says Americans face an "uphill climb" with changes in the nation's health care system starting next year.

The firm says consumers are going to have to change the way they look at health care; the way they choose a plan; they way they prepare to pay for care (which, as it has been for decades, will continue to rise after reform, Aflac says); and the way they adhere to regulations that will change significantly.

The report, which tracked responses from 2,500 U.S. employees and 1,900 workplace managers, says that while Americans shouldn't be blamed for being unprepared for health care reform, blunders in dealing with those changes will fall on them, and them alone.

"It may be referred to as 'consumer-driven health care,' but in actuality, consumers aren't the ones driving these changes, so it's no surprise that many feel unprepared," said Audrey Boone Tillman, executive vice president of Corporate Services at Aflac. "The bottom line is if consumers aren't educated about the full scope of their options, they risk making costly mistakes without a financial back-up plan."

The study notes that 89% of health care consumers opt for the same health care plans every year, but don't understand what's in those plans. Furthermore, 76% say they are largely unaware of how so-called health care exchanges -- which are the foundation of health car reform -- work.

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Health Care Reform Will Still Shock America

Dr. Mcneil Opinion United Health Care Insurance Benefits Ferndale Michigan
http://metrodetroitchiropractors.com Chiropractors Ferndale Michigan, Dr. Chris McNeil. Phone: (248) 291-6873 Ferndale Chiropractors 1200 W. 9 Mile Road Fern...

By: Chris McNeil

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Dr. Mcneil Opinion United Health Care Insurance Benefits Ferndale Michigan - Video

Updated: 04/25/2013 11:23 PM Created: 04/25/2013 10:13 PM KSTP.com | Print| Email By: Scott Theisen

Minnesota is facing a looming workforce crisis when it comes to long-term home health care.

Baby Boomers are aging, and the projected need for personal care assistants in the next decade far exceeds the number of people entering the field.

Health care advocates say it's difficult to attract and retain quality workers due to low wages and a lack of benefits.

KSTP investigated just how this so called "care gap" is already creating problems statewide.

Every day from 8 a.m to 4 p.m., Becky Pollack tends to Sharon Bramhall's most intimate needs.

Once a nurse herself, a botched sinus surgery led to an ongoing series of medical problems for Bramhall, and she ended up with a spinal fluid leak.

And if Becky weren't here, she wouldn't be at home. "At this point, (I'd probably be) dead," said Bramhall.

In 2011, nearly 27,000 people in Minnesota were deemed eligible for PCA benefits. That's more than double the number of recipients the program served in 2002.

The 2011 spending topped $422 million in state and federal dollars.

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MN Faces Looming Workforce Crisis for Long-Term Home Health Care

NORWALK, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Health care merger and acquisition activity plunged in the first quarter of 2013. (View full video: http://www.levinassociates.com/pr2013/pr1304mamq1). Deal volume was down 33% versus the previous quarter, with just 204 deals announced. The quarter also sagged (-31%) in comparison with the first quarter a year ago, when 295 deals were announced, according to The Health Care M&A Report. Deal value dropped as well. The early total for M&A activity in the first quarter is just $14.6 billion, down 39% compared with Q4:12. Compared with the first quarter of 2012, when buyers committed $29.4 billion, deal value slumped 50% in Q1:13.

The Health Care M&A Market Deal Volume by Sector

Source: Irving Levin Associates, Inc., April 2013

Behavioral Health Care was the only sector that posted a gain against the previous quarter, with deal volume up by 133% versus Q4:12. However, the seven deals announced in this sector in Q1:13 exactly matched the number of deals announced in Q1:12, which is more of an indication that deal-making in this sector picks up after the first of the year.

The Pharmaceutical sector also showed some weakening in deal volume, down 16% compared with Q4:12 and remaining flat compared with the year-ago quarter. Still, four of the first quarters 10 largest deals were announced in the Pharma sector, and three of those topped $1 billion.

Overall, the health care merger and acquisition market is doing smaller, more strategic deals while it waits for the economy to improve and the results of the sequester to settle in, said Lisa E. Phillips, editor of The Health Care M&A Report. Deal-making activity seemed to be picking up towards the end of the quarter, so we expect more positive results in the second quarter.

Even the Long-Term Care sector, which typically shows the most robust M&A activity, saw first-quarter deal volume slide by 28%, to 44 deals, compared with the previous quarter. The first quarter results were still higher than they were in the year-earlier first quarter, up 7%. In long-term care, the fourth quarter is usually the most active quarter of the year, so it was no surprise to see a drop off in the first quarter of 2013, according to Stephen M. Monroe, a partner at Irving Levin Associates. That said, where we have seen a decline is in the large, over $100 million transactions. But there has been a decline in the mega deals across most of the health care segments, so long-term care is no exception.

The number of announced health care M&A transactions in 2012 (1,063) was the highest since 2007, while the dollar value of those transactions ($143.3 billion) was the lowest since 2003, which indicates a lot of activity by a diverse group of buyers, but not the willingness to take on as many of the billion-dollar deals that were so prevalent in the past. This acquisition atmosphere has carried over into 2013 as companies decide how to approach the changes coming with health care reform.

For more information on The Health Care M&A Information Source or The Health Care M&A Report, or for a membership to any of Irving Levin Associates subscriptions, please call 800-248-1668. Irving Levin Associates, Inc., established in 1948, has headquarters in Norwalk, CT and is online at http://www.levinassociates.com. This privately held corporation publishes research reports and newsletters, and maintains merger and acquisition databases, on the health care and senior housing markets.

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Health Care M&A Spending Falls 50% in Q1 2013, Compared with Q1 2012, According to Irving Levin Associates, Inc.

ST. PAUL Minnesota already is on track to establish a new way for its residents to buy health insurance, and now legislators are poised to change how the state takes care of its elderly, disabled and poor.

Senators debated late Thursday night their plan to spend $11.2 billion in the next two years for health care, which is second only to public school funding in the $38 billion state budget.

The plan by Sen. Tony Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, builds on the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. State leaders this year established a federally required online health insurance sales program, which in several ways is tied to the Lourey bill.

Lourey said he was disappointed when handed a spending target $150 million less than in the current budget. It was much lower than I was hoping for.

However, he said, his committee was able to craft a bill that cuts no state-provided health care.

We raised some revenue in innovative ways, he said, including gaining $80 million by adding a surcharge on HMO revenues.

The bill would increase rates for nursing homes and other long-term care programs by 2 percent in 2015.

Republicans said Loureys bill does too little to help nursing homes and other long-term care programs.

The long-term care industry says it would be better off with current law, said Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont.

Some of the 115-plus nursing homes in financial crisis could be forced to close, Rosen said. Its going to be very, very tough.

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Lawmakers set to make more health care changes

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

California Hospital Medical Center has received the Partner Recognition Award from Practice Greenhealth, the nations leading health care membership community that empowers its members to increase their efficiencies and environmental stewardship while improving patient safety and care. The Award is one of the Environmental Excellence Awards given each year to honor environmental achievements in the health care sector.

This Award applauds organizations that are just beginning their journey in environmental stewardship, said Laura Wenger, RN, Executive Director, Practice Greenhealth. California Hospital Medical Center's commitment to sustainability firmly places them on the path of sustainability for the future of health care.

The Partner Recognition Award is for health care facilities that have begun to work on environmental improvements, have achieved some progress, and have at least a ten percent recycling rate for their total waste stream.

As evidenced in a recent Health Care Research Collaborative study, Can Sustainable Hospitals Help Bend the Health Care Cost Curve? introducing environmental sustainability measures in hospitals not only results in significant savings, it wont increase operating costs. The implications are clear given the return on investment, all hospitals should adopt and expand their sustainability programs.

"We have a very active Green Team," said Larry Dopson, Director of EVS and Transportation. We serve some of the most vulnerable population in the city and keeping the hospital green in this environment is both a challenge and an imperative. It respects the dignity of our patients to be cared for in a green environment, and that is important to all of us. Practice Greenhealths recognition with this award is confirmation that we are doing all we can to accomplish that and secure the future of the environment.

Some of the hospital's ongoing green programs include:

The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards were presented in Boston, MA, April 25 at CleanMed, THE premier national environmental conference for leaders in health care sustainability.

About California Hospital Medical Center

California Hospital Medical Center is a 319-bed acute care community hospital serving the health care needs of our community for the past 125 years. As a Dignity Health member, we are committed to delivering compassionate, high-quality, affordable health services.

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California Hospital Medical Center Recognized for National Health Care Environmental “Partnership” Award

TALLAHASSEE | After more than five hours of heated discussion Thursday, the dynamic of Floridas health care expansion debate officially shifted to 74 House Republicans versus the rest of the Legislature.

That chambers GOP majority Thursday protected a plan, sponsored by Rep. Travis Cummings, R-Orange Park, that would rely on state funding to offer $2,000 to low-income parents and those eligible for disability under Social Security.

The plan would require those eligible to make a $25 monthly contribution to a health care account. Money in the account would be used to shop for health care on Florida Health Choices, a marketplace created by lawmakers in 2008. Once fully implemented, it would cost an estimated $237 million each year.

The debate centered on an amendment sponsored by Rep. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, that would have replaced the House plan with a version authored in the Senate. The Senate plan, sponsored by Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, would use $51 billion over the next decade under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, to place people into private insurance.

Its supported by Democrats, Gov. Rick Scott, business and hospital-aligned special interest groups, and was passed out of its last Senate committee stop on a unanimous vote.

It would require a monthly contribution of $15 to $20 and cover about 1.1 million people currently uninsured when fully implemented. Of those, 438,113 would be covered next year.

Under Obamacare, the first three years would be covered by the federal government.

House Republicans have balked at the idea of accepting federal funds because they see it as an inconsistent funding source.

They just increased our taxes and are still trillions of dollars in debt, said Rep. Jimmie, R-Lecanto.

Democrats point to the fact that Floridas budget already includes billions in federal money, including $14 billion for health care in the Houses proposed budget.

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Florida House swats health care plan to use federal money

DENVER, April 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --South Metro Primary Care (SMPC), one of the largest primary care independent practice associations in the Denver metro area, along with their medical management company Physician Health Partners (PHP), have announced plans to connect the electronic health records systems of its 118 primary care providers to the CORHIO health information exchange (HIE).

In partnership with PHP, SMPC is one of 32 Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) in the U.S., a federal program designed to improve quality and care coordination for more than 24,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the Denver area. Connecting to the HIE will allow the 118 primary care providers in 26 practice locations to quickly and securely access their patients' information from hospitals, other provider offices and public health departments, helping them to provide more proactive and higher-quality care.

Information available to qualified health care providers through the CORHIO HIE includes lab results, X-ray, MRI and other medical imaging reports, physician transcripts, referral information, hospital discharge reports and newborn screening results.

SMPC will initially focus on connecting their practices utilizing the Amazing Charts and Allscripts EHR platforms. As the pilot progresses, more than 100 primary care physicians in SMPC on various EHR platforms will be connected to the HIE.

"We are excited to be at the forefront of connecting health care providers to the HIE system to help improve the care coordination for our patients," said Gerald Brown, M.D., SMPC, board president and physician at Internal Medicine Southwest. "Making the investment to connect was a big decision for the board, but we think it's an important step for our providers and will ultimately benefit our patients."

The data provided through the CORHIO HIE will help the SMPC providers with care coordination initiatives that are imperative to their goals of accountable and patient-centered care. The HIE makes it easier for providers to proactively follow up with their patients after hospital or specialist visits, which helps prevent medical complications and avoidable hospital readmissions. For individuals with chronic conditions, such as heart disease, asthma or diabetes, well-managed care coordination is essential to avoid unnecessary complications.

"Primary care providers and their patients can benefit greatly from the use of health information exchange technology," said Larry Wolk, M.D., CORHIO's chief executive officer. "We are pleased to see that primary care providers, including those with the South Metro Primary Care group, are increasingly discovering value in the time-savings and cost-savings that CORHIO's services provide. On top of that, we know that each time a new physician practice connects to the COHRIO HIE network, it means that hundredsor even thousandsof patients are receiving higher-quality, better coordinated health care. That is central to CORHIO's mission."

On a state level, there are currently 28 hospitals, 700+ office-based providers, 40 long-term and post-acute care facilities, four behavioral health centers and two large medical laboratories connected to the CORHIO HIE. CORHIO is also in the process of expanding its network of health care providers and is actively working to connect 12 additional hospitals, more than 900 additional office-based providers, 44 additional long-term and post-acute care providers, 2 large laboratories and eight behavioral health centers.

About South Metro Primacy Care (SMPC)South Metro Primary Care (SMPC) is a primary care Independent Practice Association (IPA) comprised of family practice and internal medicine physicians. The physicians are located mainly in the southwest and east metro area. SMPC has been in existence since August 2007 and in March 2012 merged with another IPA, KEY Primary Care Physicians. SMPC elects a nine-member Board of Directors that meets regularly.

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110+ Health Care Providers Announce Plans To Use Advanced Medical Records Technology To Improve Care For Thousands Of ...

PEGTV "Insight" talks health care with Tom Huebner, CEO, Rutland Regional Medical Center
The PEGTV panel discusses health care issues with Tom Huebner, CEO and President of Rutland Regional Medical Center.

By: RutlandRegional

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PEGTV "Insight" talks health care with Tom Huebner, CEO, Rutland Regional Medical Center - Video

WATERTOWN, Mass., April 24, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management and care coordination, today announced the launch of athenahealth Marketplace, a one-stop shop for health care provider organizations and physician practices to browse and select health care IT (HIT) solutions that augment and complement athenahealth's suite of cloud-based services.

Available today, as part of athenahealth Marketplace, are a variety of workflow efficiency and care coordination solutions including technologies from leading HIT vendors Experian Healthcare, InHealth Clinical Documentation Solutions (ICDS), NHXS, iTriage, and Entrada.

At a time when providers are facing compounding pressure to deliver patient care in line with mounting government regulation, changing payment models, decreased budgets, and limited staff, it is increasingly important to arm them with IT that is easily accessible and supports workflows that do not distract from care delivery.

"Caregivers are faced with more burdens today than ever before, and it can be difficult to thrive. Too often, providers are spending time on the wrong types of work; this causes inefficiencies and negatively impacts quality and cost," said Jonathan Bush, CEO and chairman, athenahealth. "Our marketplace is all about bringing the best HIT solutions to the forefront. Similar to what Amazon.com is for consumers, our platform, with the immense support of our Marketplace partners, will serve as a one-stop 'shop' for high-value HIT solutions."

Added Kyle Armbrester, director, Business Development: "athenahealth Marketplace is central to our strategy to create an open, cloud-based platform that -- with the help of APIs, streamlined connectivity, and a growing list of best-of-breed applications -- can solve the challenges facing health care today. What's more, we're holding our partners to a higher calling by making sure they deliver real value to our clients. We're tracking our partners' effect by measuring changes in revenue, cycle time, impact on patient outcomes, as well as other key metrics that we believe are critical to drive the necessary improvements that health care desperately needs."

The athenahealth Marketplace includes both Technology and Clinical Exchange partners. Technology partners are broken out by category based on function and include companies specializing in transcription, scheduling, personal health records, communications, contract management, and more. Because the exchange of patient information is vital to managing patient populations, connections to labs and vaccine registries across the U.S. will also be available within the Marketplace via Clinical Exchange partners.

All live solutions featured within the athenahealth Marketplace have been pilot-tested across care environments, as part of the athenahealth workflow, and by More Disruption Please (MDP). MDP is athenahealth's business development program aimed at launching a massive surge of disruptive innovation in health care. The MDP advantage is that qualified innovators can gain access to athenahealth's growing cloud-based network of about 40,000 providers. Through the MDP program, athenahealth will continue to introduce new services and accelerate the introduction of high-value innovation via the cloud.

"We are excited that athenahealth is giving providers' choice and making it possible to select a clinical documentation solution based on their workflows and needs," said Dana Heller, executive director, ICDS. "We hear from many doctors that their frustrations over the limitations of EHRs are making them choose to retire earlier rather than later; which may sound crazy but is true. A large part of why we are partnering with athenahealth is because they ask providers what they need to thrive. This opened the doors for us to work together and give providers more choice and flexibility in documenting care. It's a huge step forward for the industry in making HIT work for today's providers."

"Teaming up with athenahealth and making our contract management and analysis solutions available to the nearly 40,000 providers on athenahealth's network is a great opportunity," said Dan Buell, general manager of Experian Healthcare. "We are dedicated to giving providers more visibility into their business operations so they can help ensure accurate reimbursement from third-party payers and make better financial decisions. We are excited to be a part of the Marketplace, because it reduces the time it takes to implement these solutions and get providers up and running."

Those interested in learning more about MDP, partnership opportunities and exploring athenahealth Marketplace, please visit http://www.athenahealth.com/disruption.

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athenahealth Marketplace Brings Shopping to Health Care IT

BOSTON, April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --MedAptus today announced that UMass Memorial Health Care is rolling-out the company's Technical Charge Capture (Tech) software. Tech, currently live in the departments of rheumatology and oncology at UMass Memorial Medical Center, helps to standardize the outpatient facility billing process by automating charge creation and operational management across the ambulatory care team.

UMass Memorial Health Care is the largest health care system in central and western Massachusetts, and the clinical partner of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The five-hospital system employs 12,530 individuals and has approximately 1,700 affiliated physicians.

With 1.4 million annual outpatient visits, UMass Memorial Health Care required a technical coding and billing process that was simple for clinicians to manage, effective for compliance and also promoted payment timeliness. This is why the organization sought a proven technology solution. Given that the MedAptus Tech product was created expressly for large outpatient hospitals eager to eliminate manual entry and reconciliation processes whilst leveraging existing system investments, the fit with UMass Memorial's needs was a good one.

"With more services shifting from the inpatient arena to the ambulatory environment, it is imperative for organizations such as ours to be efficient and effective in our billing operations. Clinical and administrative staff alike have adopted MedAptus because it simplifies technical coding of both procedure and E&M levels, and in a fashion that applies professional charge components for full compliance and streamlined workflows," said George Brenckle, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, UMass Memorial Health Care. "The deployment of MedAptus at our pilot departments has been successful and we are now gearing up for an enterprise roll-out to 100 other areas."

MedAptus Tech is populated by two inbound data feeds at UMass Memorial the first interface brings over appointment data and the second feed brings in professional charges as generated by the organization's Allscripts EMR. Once the latter data enters MedAptus Tech, the patented software translates the interfaced professional charge data into a facility component, greatly simplifying the process of split-billing for UMass Memorial. For procedural-only visits such as vaccinations, those are entered directly into MedAptus Tech since those visits have no corresponding professional component.

"The implementation of our Tech solution at UMass Memorial has been an exciting project for MedAptus. We have enjoyed the opportunity to help a very large institution, in our backyard no less, improve upon manual processes that otherwise would require significant, and increasing, administrative resources. With ICD-10 quickly approaching, the timing could not be better for UMass Memorial to fully deploy our software and eliminate paper from the outpatient coding workflow. As more and more outpatient centers convert to "provider-based" status we expect the Tech integration model deployed at UMass Memorial will intrigue other large groups looking to make improvements to how they execute split-billing," said Jeffrey Pagnini, MedAptus Vice President of Account Management.

About MedAptus

MedAptus is the Gold Standard in the healthcare revenue cycle for achieving effective charge management, compliance and workflow efficiency. With offerings that include powerful and easy-to-use charge capture and management technologies, it is no wonder that many of the nation's most prestigious healthcare organizations rely on MedAptus for financial optimization. Our full-scale Professional, Technical and Infusion applications increase revenue, enhance EMR investments, re-engineer manual processes and yield substantially improved productivity. For more information, visit http://www.medaptus.comor call 617.896.4000.

MedAptus Contact: Jennifer Crowley p. 617.896.4030 Email

This press release was issued through eReleases Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

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UMass Memorial Health Care Deploys MedAptus for Technical Charge Capture and Management

By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - An effort by House Republicans to highlight problems with President Barack Obama's health care law by bailing out a program for people with pre-existing medical conditions appeared to backfire Wednesday.

GOP leaders postponed a scheduled vote after the measure met strong opposition from two directions: from conservative groups resistant to any federal role in health care and from Democrats who objected that the Republicans planned to pay for the high-risk patient program by raiding a disease prevention provision the administration says is essential to the overhaul.

The legislation, a departure from the usual GOP efforts to kill the Affordable Health Care Act outright, also faced a White House veto threat.

Erica Elliott, spokeswoman for Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, said in a statement, "We had good conversations with our members and made a lot of solid progress" on the bill. But she said there was "still work to do," and with members leaving for the Bush Presidential Library dedication, "we'll continue the conversations" when the House returns in May after a recess next week.

The GOP bill would provide up to $3.6 billion to shore up the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, or PCIP, which is intended to be a stopgap measure for uninsured high-risk patients until the end of this year, when full consumer protections under the health care act go into effect.

Under the plan, those who have been uninsured for six months would be subsidized so they could buy insurance at average rates. The original goal was for the plan to reach more than 300,000 before it disappeared at the end of this year, but the program's costs were higher than anticipated and it enrolled slightly more than 100,000 before the administration announced in February that it would stop taking new applications.

Republicans, who in the past session of Congress tried several dozen times to dismantle what they call Obamacare, sought to use their new "Helping Sick Americans Now Act" to point out defects in the pre-existing conditions program.

Their bill, said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, is a "needed piece of relief for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who were promised by their president that they would be covered under the Affordable Care Act's Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan and then were told as of Feb. 1 of this year, 'Sorry, we're closed.'"

The money for the plan would come from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a provision of the health care law that Republicans have assailed as a slush fund for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Republicans are also critical of the use of some $300 million from that fund to publicize the new health insurance markets coming this fall under the health care law.

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Under criticism, GOP puts off its health care bill - NBC40.net

WASHINGTON (AP) An effort by House Republicans to highlight problems with President Barack Obamas health care law by bailing out a program for people with pre-existing medical conditions appeared to backfire Wednesday.

GOP leaders postponed a scheduled vote after the measure met strong opposition from two directions: from conservative groups resistant to any federal role in health care and from Democrats who objected that the Republicans planned to pay for the high-risk patient program by raiding a disease prevention provision the administration says is essential to the overhaul.

The legislation, a departure from the usual GOP efforts to kill the Affordable Health Care Act outright, also faced a White House veto threat.

Erica Elliott, spokeswoman for Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, said in a statement, We had good conversations with our members and made a lot of solid progress on the bill. But she said there was still work to do, and with members leaving for the Bush Presidential Library dedication, we'll continue the conversations when the House returns in May after a recess next week.

The GOP bill would provide up to $3.6 billion to shore up the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, or PCIP, which is intended to be a stopgap measure for uninsured high-risk patients until the end of this year, when full consumer protections under the health care act go into effect.

Under the plan, those who have been uninsured for six months would be subsidized so they could buy insurance at average rates. The original goal was for the plan to reach more than 300,000 before it disappeared at the end of this year, but the programs costs were higher than anticipated and it enrolled slightly more than 100,000 before the administration announced in February that it would stop taking new applications.

Republicans, who in the past session of Congress tried several dozen times to dismantle what they call Obamacare, sought to use their new Helping Sick Americans Now Act to point out defects in the pre-existing conditions program.

Their bill, said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, is a needed piece of relief for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who were promised by their president that they would be covered under the Affordable Care Acts Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan and then were told as of Feb. 1 of this year, Sorry, were closed.'

The money for the plan would come from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a provision of the health care law that Republicans have assailed as a slush fund for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Republicans are also critical of the use of some $300 million from that fund to publicize the new health insurance markets coming this fall under the health care law.

We want to stop Obamacare and thats why were going to the fund, the slush fund, that Secretary Sebelius is using for the implementation of the bill, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said.

Link:

Under criticism, GOP puts off its health care bill

Free Market Physician Makes Health Care Affordable - Dr. Keith Smith
http://NextNewsNetwork.com | The official name of the Obamacare law is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The more we learn about that program, ...

By: NextNewsNetwork

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Free Market Physician Makes Health Care Affordable - Dr. Keith Smith - Video

Rodney Brooks, USA TODAY

Many people nearing retirement don't have a good feeling about whether they have saved enough to make it through retirement.

Add to that worries about health care costs in retirement, and those concerns are off the chart. They should be.

"I've seen people pay as much as $5,000 to $15,000 a month for their medical care in retirement," says Katherine Dean, managing director of Wells Fargo Bank.

According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual survey, more than half of retirees surveyed this year are not confident that they have saved enough to pay their medical expenses during retirement.

EBRI says the average 65-year-old couple in retirement should expect to pay $163,000 in out-of-pocket expenses for health care, excluding long-term care. And even then, they have only a 50% chance of covering their actual costs. Add to that the annual rate of inflation for medical expenses of 5% to 7% for health care expenses.

So, how do you plan for that?

Start with two simple steps, Dean says. "There needs to be a better acknowledgement that paying for health care in retirement is a pretty major issue and something they need to incorporate as part of their (financial) plan. The next step is to do an estimate as to what these costs will be and incorporate it into the plan."

What Dean says you need to consider in your estimate: how soon you want to retire, how long you can expect to live, your current health status, the cost of medical care in your area, whether you will receive any employer health benefits and inflation.

Start with an honest assessment of your current health care costs. "Break it down," says Kimberly Foss, founder of Empyrion Wealth Management in Roseville, Calif., and author of the book Wealthy by Design. "If you are 55 or 58 and you have significant health issues, you need to figure out what those costs are now and apply them to retirement."

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How to plan for health care costs in retirement

Air pollution was a huge worry for Metro Vancouver in the 1970s and early 1990s, but health care and traffic congestion have taken over as bigger concerns, according the latest Urban Futures survey released today.

The 2012 regional survey, which replicates two surveys in 1973 and 1990, found health care was the most pressing challenge among 1,407 people surveyed, followed by traffic congestion, homelessness and increasing housing supply.

Air and water pollution, which held first and second place in 1973 and 1990, fell to fifth and sixth place last year. Concerns about crime also fell from No. 4 in 1972 to 11 last year.

Ken Cameron, director of PlaceSpeak, a new start-up that provides a virtual consultation forum, said the results reflect the work thats been done in the past 40 years to address the earlier concerns, as well as highlight whats needed to deal with rising issues like health care and transportation.

Health care had been ranked ninth on the priority list in 1973 and third in 1990. The survey suggests the change in ranking may reflect in part the aging population, as well as concerns over reliable service delivery.

Health care may be a function of aging population but its seen as a critical need, Cameron said. Ive got the feeling people are feeling the health care system is under stress.

Traffic congestion has also become a bigger issue rising from sixth and seventh respectively in the 1973 and 1990 surveys as a result of public policy to emphasize transit, walking and cycling over single-occupant vehicles.

But the survey found the significance of those issues varied across the region, and by the age of the respondents.

Those under 35, for instance, were less likely than the older demographic to see health care and transportation infrastructure as critical priorities and were more sensitive to socio-economic difficulties.

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Health care, transportation top regional concerns