Healthcare News

Urgent Care Boom Equates to Increase in Hospital’s Revenue per Admission

By YES HIM Consulting / July 24, 2018 / Comments Off on Urgent Care Boom Equates to Increase in Hospital’s Revenue per Admission

Over the course of the last decade, U.S. hospitals are continuing to expand their urgent care clinic networks. According to a NPR/Kaiser Health News report from December 2017, the primary goals for adopting a more decentralized approach through urgent care facilities include: Expanding the footprint/brand of the health system (at a discounted rate); Generating new referrals; Keeping patients out of the ED (40% of ED visits nationwide DO NOT require Emergency Services); and boosting patient satisfaction.

New Medicare Cards Replace the SSN-based Health Insurance Claim Number

By Karen Youmans / May 22, 2018 / Comments Off on New Medicare Cards Replace the SSN-based Health Insurance Claim Number

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has officially started to mail new Medicare cards to beneficiaries. The new cards will use a unique, randomly assigned number called a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) to replace the SSN-based Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) currently used on Medicare cards. The law requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue new Medicare cards that do not display, code, or embed SSNs by April 2019.

VA and Cerner Agree on New EHR System – What’s Next?

By Mari Cely / May 22, 2018 / Comments Off on VA and Cerner Agree on New EHR System – What’s Next?

The Veterans Affairs Department and Cerner have agreed on a new Electronic Health Record (EHR) system for the VA. This means that the VA will be using Cerner EHR, the same software as the Department of Defense. The project, estimated to cost $16 billion, will take about 10 years to take full effect.