Volume 2, Number 41 — October 25, 2010 70 days until the first Baby Boomer applies for Medicare Dear Home Care Colleague, An innovative agency owner in Southern California is trying something that has not been done before and we want to officially wish him luck with it.
A new study by Kaiser Permanente of Colorado has found a way to reduce heart-related mortality by 88%. Healthcare cost per patient averaged $60 less per day in a group of just over 600 heart patients enrolled in a population management program that treated patients with electronic health records and computerized disease registries.
>Collaboration between network carriers and mobile device manufacturers is enabling delivery of meaningful telehealth benefits to virtually anyone, anywhere. This guest article by the founder of a new telehealth company, whom we met at this month’s NAHC meeting, introduces the concept of "commercially-available-off-the-shelf" telehealth devices and predicts their acceptance by the consumer market is imminent.
Two managed care plans owned by AmeriHealth Mercy Family of Companies and affiliated with Pennsylvania Medicaid acknowledged to a reporter on October 21 that a flash drive storing 280,000 patient records had gone missing on September 20. The cost of complying with HIPAA victim notification requirements and offering credit monitoring services is estimated in the millions.
Conference announcement/call for abstracts and award nominations The Omaha System International Conference: A Key to Practice, Documentation, and Information Management will be held in Eagan, MN from April 7-9, 2011. It is presented by Martin Associates and the host school is San Jose State University School of Nursing. Poster abstracts/awards nominations are due January 31, 2011. […]
Northwood Homecare began using the CellTrak cellular point-of-care documentation system in the fall of 2009. Over the course of that year, the Halifax, Nova Scotia home care provider has been able to eliminate paper reports, inaccuracies and forgotten tasks at the point of care.
Have you spoken with your software vendor yet about their plans for the HIPAA 5010 claims transaction sets? Testing begins in January, with implementation one year later. After that, CMS claims, ICD-10 will arrive on time in 2013, and it will be obligatory for all HIPAA covered entities, not just those that submit claims to Medicare and Medicaid.
Another insurance company has been convinced that remote patient monitoring systems can reduce hospital recidivism and lower overall patient costs. 270 Humana workers will monitor 60,000 plan members.
There are about 1,000 hip fractures every day in the United States, over 90% of which are caused by falls. Fatal fall injuries add $179 million to U.S. healthcare costs. Nonfatal fall injuries — most of which are preventable through risk analysis and treatment — cost $19 billion. One technology company founded by experts in Mechanical Engineering and Biomechanics believes it can slash those costs but it needs home care physical therapists to play a role.
