X-15 Flight by Capt. Joe Engle 1964 NASA-USAF; Edwards Air Force Base X-15A-3 56-6672 NB-52B – Video

Posted on by


X-15 Flight by Capt. Joe Engle 1964 NASA-USAF; Edwards Air Force Base X-15A-3 56-6672 NB-52B
more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/ X-15 simulator training, and a flight of the X-15A-3 ( 56-6672 ) by then Air Force Captain Joe Engle, (later a Space S...

By: Jeff Quitney

Follow this link:

X-15 Flight by Capt. Joe Engle 1964 NASA-USAF; Edwards Air Force Base X-15A-3 56-6672 NB-52B - Video

NASA chief: Visiting an asteroid is all we can afford

Posted on by

WASHINGTON A NASA plan to send astronauts to an asteroid was met with skepticism Wednesday when NASA Chief Charlie Bolden presented the idea to top space officials in Congress though their doubts may not be enough to sink the program.

The asteroid mission, unveiled a few weeks ago, would send a NASA probe to capture a small asteroid and drag it to a point near the moon so astronauts riding a new rocket and capsule could visit it, possibly as soon as 2021.

"The goal is [to] remain the world's leader in exploration," Bolden said. But members of the U.S. House science committee took issue with the project's cost and feasibility and questioned why the agency wasn't planning a return to the moon en route to an eventual mission to Mars.

The NASA chief delivered a blunt reply: It's all NASA can afford.

"I need money to go to the moon," Bolden said.

As part of its 2014 budget proposal, the White House wants NASA to spend $105 million next year to begin planning the asteroid mission, which could cost upward of $2.6 billion.

Broadly, the administration envisions sending a probe as soon as 2017 to capture a 25-foot, 500-ton asteroid and tug it near the moon possibly to a spot about 277,000 miles from Earth that would use competing gravitational forces to allow it to "sit" there.

Astronauts flying NASA's new Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket then would visit it to take samples and possibly set foot on its surface.

In addition to scientific benefits, Bolden said an asteroid trip would serve as a steppingstone for an eventual Mars mission while also teaching NASA engineers how to divert an asteroid in case one ever threatened Earth. He called it "an unprecedented technological challenge."

Lawmakers, however, wanted to know whether NASA would learn more and do more by going back to the moon instead.

See the rest here:

NASA chief: Visiting an asteroid is all we can afford

Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

Posted on by

NASA is exploring ways to send a flotilla of small satellites to a destination, rather than one large orbiter. In a first test, three tiny satellites are now on orbit and beeping back at Earth. Why the idea could be an aid to scientific research.

That's no smart phone in your pocket or purse; that's the heart and soul of a satellite.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

Three satellites, to be exact, released into orbit on Sunday with the launch of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s new Antares rocket, the latest addition to NASA's stable of space-station resupply vehicles.

The tiny satellites, each occupying a cube four inches on a side, represent an experiment in using cheap but powerful off-the-shelf technology to run a new generation of small, affordable science satellites.

Two of these orbiters, which NASA has dubbed Phonesat 1.0, use the electronics and sensors packaged in a Google Nexus One smart phone to serve as on-board computers. Accelerometers that normally tell the phones which way you've oriented the screen now gather information on the satellites' orientation in space. And the cameras? Yep, snapshots of Earth from 156 miles up.

The third satellite, a prototype for Phonesat 2.0, uses a more powerful Nexus S, which also has a built-in gyroscope. Ultimately, engineers plan to use that extra capability to control solar panels and to control the spacecraft's orientation, instead of just recording it.

The notion of using a smart phone's innards to run a satellite grew out of informal hallway chatter, recalls James Cockrell, project manager for Phonesat at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.

The benchmark people often use as a point of comparison for the power of their favorite laptop or smart phone is the primitive computing power used in the Apollo program, which landed humans on the moon and brought them back safely in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Read the original post:

Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

Orbital Sciences Corporation : ORBITAL SELECTED BY NASA FOR TESS ASTROPHYSICS SATELLITE

Posted on by

ORBITAL SELECTED BY NASA FOR TESS ASTROPHYSICS SATELLITE

-- Company to Serve as Industrial Partner to MIT and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Under Four-Year, $75 Million Contract --

(Dulles, VA 24 April 2013) - Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB), one of the world`s leading space technology companies, announced today that it has been selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to design, manufacture, integrate and test a new astrophysics satellite that will perform a full-sky search for exoplanets around nearby stars. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) satellite program, which will be based on Orbital`s proven LEOStar-2 spacecraft platform, will be executed at Orbital`s satellite production and testing facility in Dulles, VA. The four-year contract is valued at approximately $75 million.

The mission of the TESS spacecraft is to provide prime exoplanet candidates for further characterization by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as well as other large ground-based and space-based telescopes in the future. The planned launch of the TESS spacecraft in mid-2017 is well matched to JWST`s scheduled launch in 2018 to maintain momentum in NASA`s exoplanet program.

"We are honored to have the opportunity to support MIT and Goddard in this pioneering astrophysics mission that will result in the first space-borne all-sky exoplanet transit survey," said Mr. Mike Miller, Orbital`s Senior Vice President of Science and Environmental Satellite Programs. "Our reliable and affordable line of LEOStar spacecraft, coupled with MIT`s world-class science leadership and Goddard`s experienced mission management team, will provide an innovative space science mission for NASA in the most cost-effective way possible."

Chosen for its scientific value and low-risk development plan, the TESS mission will perform an all-sky survey using an unique array of telescopes to discover exoplanets orbiting nearby stars and will seek to identify habitable, Earth-like planets. TESS will further the study of small exoplanets, first uncovered by NASA`s Kepler spacecraft, by examining an immense quantity of small planets that surround the sky`s brightest stars. The stars examined by Kepler are fainter and more difficult to study than those TESS will survey, and past ground-based observations have been limited to only giant exoplanets, thereby ensuring that TESS will provide a compelling new catalog of stars hosting transiting exoplanets, suitable for future missions to study.

The TESS mission was awarded under NASA`s Explorer series of lower cost and highly productive space science satellites. Orbital has built multiple Explorer satellites for NASA in the past, including the NuSTAR, Swift, GALEX, AIM and IBEX spacecraft, all of which are currently operational and providing valuable scientific data.

The TESS project is being led by Principal Investigator Dr. George Ricker of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, and mission management is performed by NASA`s Goddard Space Flight Center. The TESS mission features partners from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, NASA`s Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, The Aerospace Corporation, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. The two-year astrophysics mission will be funded by a $200 million award from NASA.

The TESS mission will rely on Orbital`s LEOStar-2 platform, a flexible, high-performance spacecraft for space and Earth science, remote sensing and other applications. Spacecraft built on the LEOStar-2 bus have such performance options as redundancy, propulsion capability, high data rate communications, and high-agility/high-accuracy pointing. The LEOStar-2 series of spacecraft have supported multiple missions for commercial and government customers over the past 15 years.

See the original post here:

Orbital Sciences Corporation : ORBITAL SELECTED BY NASA FOR TESS ASTROPHYSICS SATELLITE

NASA now footing entire bill for plutonium production

Posted on by

NASA

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is among NASA's fleet powered by Plutonium-236.

By Mike Wall Space.com

NASA will now foot the entire bill for the United States' production of plutonium-238 spacecraft fuel, which recently started up again for the first time in a quarter-century.

The space agency had been splitting costs for the reboot with the U.S. Department of Energy, which actually produces plutonium-238. But NASA is the only projected user of the stuff, so the arrangement changed in the White House's federal budget request for 2014, which was unveiled earlier this month.

"Since the (Obama) administration has a 'user pays' philosophy, we are now in a position to pay for basically the entire enterprise, including the base infrastructure at DOE," NASA Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson said in an April 10 press conference. "We'll be partnering with DOE in the next couple of months to figure out how to best do this, and how to streamline the program to produce plutonium-238."[Nuclear Generators Power NASA Probes (Infographic)]

Plutonium-238 is not a bomb-making material, but it is radioactive, emitting heat that can be converted to electricity using a device called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. For decades, RTGs have powered NASA probes to destinations in deep space, where sunlight is too weak and dispersed to be of much use to a robot.

For example, the agency's twin Voyager spacecraft, which are knocking on the door of interstellar space, are both RTG-powered. So is the Mars rover Curiosity, whose observations recently helped scientists determine that the Red Planet could once have supported microbial life.

The DOE stopped producing Pu-238 in 1988, after which NASA began sourcing the fuel from Russia. But the agency received its last Russian shipment in 2010, and supplies have been dwindling ever since, worrying many scientists and space-exploration advocates.

So NASA and the DOE have been working together on a Pu-238 restart, which officials from both agencies have estimated will cost between $75 million and $90 million over five years.

More:

NASA now footing entire bill for plutonium production

Why NASA Is Firing Cell Phones Into Space

Posted on by

Today, in NASA Is the Best: The space agency this week took a handful of cheap but powerful smartphones, slapped them to a gigantic rocket and blasted them into low-earth orbit to see how they'd fare. The project, called PhoneSat, is one of those wacky experiments that seems at first to have nothing to do with science. But it's not a stunt.

The phones ordinary Nexus Ones, the kind made by HTC and once sold by Google are being tested as a kind of prototype satellite, and they provide a glimpse of a possible future where ordinary commercial technology that we take for granted winds up powering and controlling larger sensing devices (or even becoming full-fledged research platforms themselves). Smartphones are already remarkably well-equipped for space: They're small. They've got powerful batteries and processors. They have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and high-quality cameras. For a budget-conscious organization like NASA that's increasingly turning away from manned space missions, PhoneSat makes a lot of sense. The three devices orbiting earth right now are cutely named Alexander, Graham and Bell, respectively, in a nod to the man commonly credited with inventing the telephone. After about 10 days from Sunday's launch, the phones will re-enter the atmosphere, burning up in the process (ouch).

Even more interesting than the hardware NASA's using is the software -- and how it was developed.

"The satellites almost came out of the box ready-made," said Bruce Yost, one of the project's lead scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "But all the things that made it interesting are software. The intent is to be like the software community: Build, test, break, rebuild, and keep the cycle going and see if you can spiral your way to success."

Thanks to Google's open-source Android OS, each PhoneSat includes a specially developed app that helps the phones transmit information back to earth from orbit. At regular intervals, the devices beam down data about their health and status, and take up to 100 photos of their surroundings at a time, Yost said. The app then automatically selects the best shots (ones with the earth's horizon in them) and broadcasts them wirelessly to the ground, where any amateur radio operator can pick up the signal.

Because each hobbyist receives a different piece of the same photo, it takes a group effort to recompile the whole thing -- a bit like building a jigsaw puzzle. The hobbyists upload what they've got back to NASA, where all the data that's coming in is built into a composite. So far, some 200 packets of data have been recorded, said Jim Cockrell, another project lead.

Researchers are still a long way from totally replacing big pieces of orbital machinery with tiny iPhones or Android handsets, although one of the three phones that went up Sunday is equipped with a working solar panel array, just like their bigger cousins. It's a promising sign of how much we can accomplish just by taking advantage of the tools we've already got to hand. Watch the phones' positions change in real-time here.

Follow this link:

Why NASA Is Firing Cell Phones Into Space

NASA Sends Cell Phones (Regular Old Cell Phones) Into Space

Posted on by

Brian Fung/Flickr/NASA/JPL

Today, in NASA Is the Best: The space agency this week took a handful of cheap but powerful smartphones, slapped them to a gigantic rocket and blasted them into low-earth orbit to see how they'd fare. The project, called PhoneSat, is one of those wacky experiments that seems at first to have nothing to do with science. But it's not a stunt.

The phones -- ordinary Nexus Ones, the kind made by HTC and once sold by Google -- are being tested as a kind of prototype satellite, and they provide a glimpse of a possible future where ordinary commercial technology that we take for granted winds up powering and controlling larger sensing devices (or even becoming full-fledged research platforms themselves). Smartphones are already remarkably well-equipped for space: They're small. They've got powerful batteries and processors. They have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and high-quality cameras. For a budget-conscious organization like NASA that's increasingly turning away from manned space missions, PhoneSat makes a lot of sense. The three devices orbiting earth right now are cutely named Alexander, Graham and Bell, respectively, in a nod to the man commonly credited with inventing the telephone. After about 10 days from Sunday's launch, the phones will re-enter the atmosphere, burning up in the process (ouch).

Even more interesting than the hardware NASA's using is the software -- and how it was developed.

"The satellites almost came out of the box ready-made," said Bruce Yost, one of the project's lead scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "But all the things that made it interesting are software. The intent is to be like the software community: Build, test, break, rebuild, and keep the cycle going and see if you can spiral your way to success."

Thanks to Google's open-source Android OS, each PhoneSat includes a specially developed app that helps the phones transmit information back to earth from orbit. At regular intervals, the devices beam down data about their health and status, and take up to 100 photos of their surroundings at a time, Yost said. The app then automatically selects the best shots (ones with the earth's horizon in them) and broadcasts them wirelessly to the ground, where any amateur radio operator can pick up the signal.

Because each hobbyist receives a different piece of the same photo, it takes a group effort to recompile the whole thing -- a bit like building a jigsaw puzzle. The hobbyists upload what they've got back to NASA, where all the data that's coming in is built into a composite. So far, some 200 packets of data have been recorded, said Jim Cockrell, another project lead.

Researchers are still a long way from totally replacing big pieces of orbital machinery with tiny iPhones or Android handsets, although one of the three phones that went up Sunday is equipped with a working solar panel array, just like their bigger cousins. It's a promising sign of how much we can accomplish just by taking advantage of the tools we've already got to hand. Watch the phones' positions change in real-time here.

More From The Atlantic

See the original post here:

NASA Sends Cell Phones (Regular Old Cell Phones) Into Space

NASA Is Firing Cell Phones Into Space

Posted on by

Today, in NASA Is the Best: The space agency this week took a handful of cheap but powerful smartphones, slapped them to a gigantic rocket and blasted them into low-earth orbit to see how they'd fare. The project, called PhoneSat, is one of those wacky experiments that seems at first to have nothing to do with science. But it's not a stunt.

The phones ordinary Nexus Ones, the kind made by HTC and once sold by Google are being tested as a kind of prototype satellite, and they provide a glimpse of a possible future where ordinary commercial technology that we take for granted winds up powering and controlling larger sensing devices (or even becoming full-fledged research platforms themselves). Smartphones are already remarkably well-equipped for space: They're small. They've got powerful batteries and processors. They have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and high-quality cameras. For a budget-conscious organization like NASA that's increasingly turning away from manned space missions, PhoneSat makes a lot of sense. The three devices orbiting earth right now are cutely named Alexander, Graham and Bell, respectively, in a nod to the man commonly credited with inventing the telephone. After about 10 days from Sunday's launch, the phones will re-enter the atmosphere, burning up in the process (ouch).

Even more interesting than the hardware NASA's using is the software -- and how it was developed.

"The satellites almost came out of the box ready-made," said Bruce Yost, one of the project's lead scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "But all the things that made it interesting are software. The intent is to be like the software community: Build, test, break, rebuild, and keep the cycle going and see if you can spiral your way to success."

Thanks to Google's open-source Android OS, each PhoneSat includes a specially developed app that helps the phones transmit information back to earth from orbit. At regular intervals, the devices beam down data about their health and status, and take up to 100 photos of their surroundings at a time, Yost said. The app then automatically selects the best shots (ones with the earth's horizon in them) and broadcasts them wirelessly to the ground, where any amateur radio operator can pick up the signal.

Because each hobbyist receives a different piece of the same photo, it takes a group effort to recompile the whole thing -- a bit like building a jigsaw puzzle. The hobbyists upload what they've got back to NASA, where all the data that's coming in is built into a composite. So far, some 200 packets of data have been recorded, said Jim Cockrell, another project lead.

Researchers are still a long way from totally replacing big pieces of orbital machinery with tiny iPhones or Android handsets, although one of the three phones that went up Sunday is equipped with a working solar panel array, just like their bigger cousins. It's a promising sign of how much we can accomplish just by taking advantage of the tools we've already got to hand. Watch the phones' positions change in real-time here.

More here:

NASA Is Firing Cell Phones Into Space

Stanford University School of Medicine Joins zSpace, Inc.'s Academic Advisory Council

Posted on by

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 23, 2013) - zSpace, Inc., a technology provider that is transforming the future of human-computer interaction, announced today that the Stanford University School of Medicine's Division of Clinical Anatomy has joined the Company's Academic Advisory Council, a network of universities focused on advancing innovation, design and research. zSpace, Inc., has also joined the Division's affiliates program as a Premier Affiliate of Clinical Anatomy at Stanford. Through this partnership, Stanford Anatomy will provide constructive input on the continued enhancement of the Company's flagship product, zSpace, a 3D virtual holographic platform, and use zSpace's immersive capabilities to advance medical research and education through highly realistic visualization and interaction.

Through its Academic Advisory Council, zSpace, Inc. strives to engage with the next generation of designers and engineers to evolve the way in which humans can interact with computers, improve the zSpace platform based on user experiences, identify additional uses for the technology and recruit top talent for the Company's development team. Stanford joins esteemed universities participating on the Council including Olin College, University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

As part of this new partnership, students at Stanford University School of Medicine are able to use zSpace first hand to research, learn and explore within the medical field, while providing the Company with constructive feedback to enhance the platform based on their experience, discoveries and developments.

"zSpace offers great promise for advancements in immersive and simulation-based learning," said Dr. Sakti Srivastava, Associate Professor of Surgery and Chief of Clinical Anatomy at Stanford. "It brings a level of realism to digital structures that we have not seen before, and the prospects for its use in teaching anatomy and surgical skills are very encouraging. We look forward to contributing to the platform's continued development by pursuing such enhancements as haptic feedback, and to seeing our students and researchers use the zSpace system to explore the detailed 3D anatomical models we have created here at Stanford."

"The level of realism and interaction made possible through zSpace lends itself to endless potential within the medical field," said Paul Kellenberger, CEO, zSpace, Inc. "Stanford medical students, professors and researchers are at the heart of driving medical developments, and we are thrilled to empower them with a technology that allows for cost-effective observation, discovery and even simulation training."

About Stanford University School of Medicine - Division of Clinical Anatomy

The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. The medical school is part of Stanford University Medical Center, which also includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. As part of Stanford's Department of Surgery, the Division of Clinical Anatomy provides anatomy education to students at a variety of levels and conducts research and development on the use of digital learning resources. Its programs embody Stanford's longstanding commitment to innovation by integrating the benefits of multimedia medical visualization technologies with the study of human specimens. Through its affiliates program, the Division works with industry partners to advance research in education and medical device design. For more information, visit anatomy.stanford.edu and med.stanford.edu.

About zSpacezSpace, formerly known as Infinite Z, is a leading-edge technology provider that enables natural interaction with virtual-holographic 3D imagery through its flagship product, zSpace. Targeting markets including manufacturing, biotechnology, architecture, engineering, government, medical and research, zSpace aims to accelerate design and development processes and increase productivity through 3D visualization. Join the Developer Community that is leading the way in 3D innovation by visiting http://www.zspace.com/developers. zSpace is a privately held, venture backed company located in Sunnyvale, CA, and has filed more than 30 patents for its innovative technologies. For more information, visit http://www.zspace.com.

Infinite Z and zSpace are registered trademarks of zSpace, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Read this article:

Stanford University School of Medicine Joins zSpace, Inc.'s Academic Advisory Council

Explore the Forefront of iPS Cell Research / Regenerative Medicine at Asia's Largest Bio Event, BIOtech 2013 Japan

Posted on by

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Expectation toward regenerative medicine and stem cell research represented by iPS cells is ever growing, not only for clinical application but also as tools to make drug development/discovery more effective and efficient. Especially in Japan, home of the Novel prize winner Dr. Yamanaka, the market is moving very actively, gaining support in many aspects such as government subsidies, legislation, launch of research centers and so on.

At BIOtech 2013 Japan (Asia's LARGEST bio event taking place in Tokyo from May 8 to 10), there will be an increased number of presentations, research achievements and technologies/products related to iPS Cell Research / Regenerative Medicine showcased. Why not visit BIOtech 2013 Japan and explore the forefront of the hottest field?

The foremost authority of stem cell research addresses the future potential of iPS Cells (CONFERENCE) At the Conference, the latest development on iPS Cells and Regenerative Medicine will be addressed as one of the main features. No.1 popular session at the moment is Special Session-3 spoken by the foremost authority of stem cell research, Dr. Hiro Nakauchi (Professor and Director, Center of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, The Institute of Medical Science of The University of Tokyo). In addition to his presentation "iPS Technology and its Potential for Future Medicine", Dr. Sawa (Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine) will disclose newly-developed cell sheet technology and its application for complete regeneration of severely-damaged myocardium. There will be more sessions featuring regenerative medicine and stem cell research, such as Special Session-5 addressing the great challenge of regenerative medicine - 3-D Tissue Engineering, Special Session-9 addressing the theme from a different approach - materials and manufacturing technologies required for further development of regenerative medicine, and many more. >>Full program & application (FREE admission with Member Registration)

The latest research achievements by Japanese academics (PARTNERING) BIOtech 2013 Japan will also be a prime opportunity to explore the latest academic research achievements and find partners from about 200 Japanese academic presenters, who participate in Partnering at BIOtech 2013 Japan through online "Bio Partnering System". There will be an increased number of platform technologies/seeds related to iPS Cells / Regenerative Medicine presented this year. (See below for excerpts) -Screening for compounds using hiPS cells and a chemically defined serum-free culture (NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF BIOMEDICAL INNOVATION, Dr. Masaki Kinehara) -Cancer Stem Cell Model Developed From iPS Cells (OKAYAMA UNIVERSITY, Dr. Masaharu Seno) -Production of virus-free iPS cells by a novel cell penetrating peptide (NATIONAL CENTER FOR GLOBAL HEALTH AND MEDICINE, Dr. Yukihito Ishizaka) -Development of the biological pacemaker derived from pluripotent stem cells (TOTTORI UNIVERSITY, Dr. Yasuaki Shirayoshi) -Cytometry using antibody arrays for the quality control of stem cells (HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY, Dr. Koichi Kato)

>>Search other research themes / academics >>Join "Bio Partnering System" and receive proposals/appointment requests from academics (Member Registration)

Products/services supporting iPS Cell Research (EXHIBITION) Many companies considering the growth of the iPS market as a huge opportunity, there's a notable increase in exhibits for/applied to iPS cell research at BIOtech 2013 Japan. >>Exhibitors with products/services for iPS/ES Cells Research Why not find the latest products/technologies at Asia's largest product/technology showcase, where 600 exhibitors gather from around the world? (expected) >>Search exhibitors on e-Guidebook

Visit BIOtech 2013 Japan! (May 8-10 at Tokyo Big Sight) Still in time! To visit, get FREE Invitation Ticket NOW. >>>http://www.bio-t.jp/en/inv/

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20130423006972/en/

Continue reading here:

Explore the Forefront of iPS Cell Research / Regenerative Medicine at Asia's Largest Bio Event, BIOtech 2013 Japan

MBC Helps Internal Medicine Specialists in Florida Tackle Medicare & Medicaid Fee Parity Initiative Challenges

Posted on by

WILMINGTON, Delaware, April 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Medicalbillersandcoders.com's internal medicine experts have recently witnessed an increasingly high demand for medical billing services in Florida. MBC recognizes that this is partly due to several professional challenges intrinsic to the discipline, and also due to the fact that Florida is amongst the lowest paying states for Medicaid internal medicine specialist rates.

This dismal state of payment owes mainly to the fact (apart from Florida being a low fee center) that the services provided by internal medicine specialists come under Medicaid which involves much lower rates than Medicare. To bring about a balance between Medicare and Medicaid, medical authorities have equaled Medicaid rates with those of Medicare on a pilot basis applicable until December 2014.

But, alas, at a state level, this will significantly alter policies, claims systems, provider databases and data reporting. MBC realizes that these state-level policy and procedure alterations will drill down to change the way internal medicine specialists make claims and track claim-related documents. MBC has been helping many internal medical specialists in Florida to handle challenges arising from this new rate parity.

MBC noticed the following areas will be of prime concern for internal medicine specialists-

The challenges outlined are going to affect internal medicine specialists in all states that are undergoing this fee parity initiative. But MBC understands that the challenges are going to affect the specialist differently depending on size and nature of the practice and consequently has a different approach depending on the practice.

MBC's role in assisting Internal Medicine physicians in Florida

The challenges outlined above evidence various areas of concern like- right documentation, staff training for appropriate use of codes, tracking codes which have been used previously etc.

As part of the Revenue Cycle Consulting services, MBC performs-

Many internal medicine specialists from small to large sized set- ups, in Florida, have opted for MBC's services entirely shipping out their billing and coding responsibilities to MBC - so that their staff can continue to focus on medical activities even as they seamlessly realize claims becoming beneficiaries of the rate increase rather than its victims.

Go here to read the rest:

MBC Helps Internal Medicine Specialists in Florida Tackle Medicare & Medicaid Fee Parity Initiative Challenges