The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is implementing an appeals process for its Medicare EHR incentive program and posted guidelines on how to appeal a payment decision on its website.

As hospital beds fill up and more patients are admitted, hospital staff oftentimes is bogged down with documentation, perhaps jeopardizing time spent with patients. How can this be remedied? Sponsored by an educational grant from Aventura.

The value of EMR systems to large hospital systems has been proven but what about small physician practices? Economies of scale dont work in their favor, but small practices can reap IT benefits.

GE Healthcare has reported a 1 percent increase in fourth quarter revenues to $5.16 billion, and a slight drop5 percentin quarter profits to $953 million. However, the yearly revenue in 2011 rose 7 percent in 2011 over 2010$18.08 billion versus $16.9 billion. Likewise, the healthcare units yearly profits rose 2 percent from $2.74 billion in 2010 to $2.8 billion in 2011.

Bone mineral density (BMD) screening for osteoporosis should be necessary only every 15 years for postmenopausal women with normal bone density on an initial test, though the screening interval for women with advanced osteopenia should be reduced to one year, according to a study published in the Jan. 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Every hospital larger than 50 beds should have a full or part-time designated CMIO due to increasing demands for clinical workflow automation, meaningful use and healthcare reform, stated thought leader John Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, CIO at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, on his blog Jan. 17.

The FDA has cleared Riverain Technologies Temporal Comparison x-ray software.

Researchers studying the implementation of stand-alone e-prescribing systems in ambulatory medical practices determined that although e-prescribing benefits are apparent, deriving these benefits will require clinical decision support (CDS) based on presentation of accurate and complete formulary and benefit and medication history data, according to a report published January in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.