CMS Announces Extension for EPs participating in PQRS via EHR and QCDR (QRDA III format)

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is pleased to announce that the submission deadlines for the PQRS reporting methods below have been extended.  All other submission timeframes for other PQRS reporting methods remain the same.  The revised submission timeframes are:

Reporting Method	Submission Period	Submission Deadline Time (All Times are Eastern)
EHR Direct or Data Submission Vendor that is certified EHR technology (CEHRT)	1/1/15 - 3/20/15	8:00 p.m.
Qualified clinical data registries (QCDRs) (using QRDA III format) reporting for PQRS and the clinical quality measure (CQM) component of meaningful use for the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program	1/1/15 - 3/20/15	8:00 p.m.

An Individuals Authorized Access to CMS Computer Services (IACS) account with the “PQRS Submitter Role” is required for these PQRS data submission methods. Please see the IACS Quick Reference Guides for specifics.
PQRS provides an incentive payment to individual eligible professionals (EPs) and group practices that satisfactorily participate or satisfactorily report data on quality measures for covered Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) services. Additionally, those who do not meet the 2014 PQRS reporting requirements will be subject to a negative payment adjustment on all Medicare Part B PFS services rendered in 2016.
Note:  The deadline listed above does apply to Individual Eligible Professionals and Group Practices participating in other CMS programs such as the Medicare EHR Incentive Program and Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative that are utilizing the reporting methods listed above. Additionally, CMS has extended the deadline for EPs wishing to attest to meaningful use for the EHR reporting period in 2014 for the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program to March 20, 2015. Please be on the lookout for a separate listserv with information regarding the attestation extension.

For questions, please contact the QualityNet Help Desk 1-866-288-8912 or via email at Qnetsupport@hcqis.org from 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. Central Time. Complete information about PQRS is available at  http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/PQRS/index.html.

How Medisoft Is Keeping Up with Important Tech Trends Going into 2015

A recent post at +PhysiciansPractice talked about major tech trends for physicians to watch in 2015. They’re important and thought-provoking challenges that every physician should consider when deciding which EMR to choose, how to deploy it and how best to implement electronic patient records. +Medisoft EHR, a certified full EHR, helps small to medium-sized practices face and overcome these challenges with tools that are geared especially to their business practices and needs. Check out these ways that Medisoft Clinical – and your certified Medisoft vendor – can help meet each of the challenges identified in the article.

Industry Consolidation

The author noted that many EMR products aimed at small-to-medium practices were being swallowed up or disappearing as the competition for business heats up. Medisoft  has been around for years and is one of the most-used medical billing and electronic patient records products on the market. It is available through many independent, value-added resellers. If you choose Medisoft as your practice EMR, you can be certain it isn’t going anywhere. Likewise, choose a reseller with years of Medisoft experience to ensure that they’ll be there to service your practice for years into the future.

Interoperability

A second concern raised in the article was the issue of information exchange. As the national infrastructure for medical information exchange ramps up, physicians are encountering issues with software conflicts and interoperability. As one of the most-used and respected EMRs in the country, Medisoft has been engineered to work with all the major platforms for health information exchange, and will continue to adapt and change as needed. Your practice won’t be left with an EMR that can’t communicate as needed.

Meaningful Use Requirements

The sheer number of meaningful use standards is, to quote the article, mind-boggling, but Medisoft Clinical is designed to make conforming to those standards easier for individual practitioners. Many vendors are offering training and assistance alongside their Medisoft installations to ease your staff into the required record-keeping and knowledge necessary to stay abreast of all the requirements.

HIPAA Compliance

One of the many benefits of Medisoft for mobile practices is its app for physicians and practitioners on the go. The wide range of devices on which health information systems can be used raises issues of patient privacy and security. Medisoft has been at the forefront of ensuring patient privacy from the very beginning, and many Medisoft vendors offer best practices tips to help users keep all data secure, no matter what device is being used.

Work Flow

The article touches very briefly on a fairly big barrier to the adoption of consistent EMR use – physician resistance. Some doctors and medical staff persons complain that EMR use affects and changes their work flow. In fact, Medisoft is designed for adaptability with features that can be customized to work best in a wide range of practices and for a wide range of practitioners.

Data Encryption

Data breaches place your practice at serious risk. Good data encryption helps protect your practice from lawsuits and your patients from having their data stolen. Because all medical data held within Medisoft is encrypted, the most important thing practitioners can do is enforce a strict policy of only accessing medical data and electronic patient records through password-protected Medisoft screens.

These challenges are not deal breakers, especially if your practice is using an EMR like Medisoft, which has made it a mission to provide the tools physicians need to keep up in a technologically challenging world.

If You’re Using Medisoft for Meaningful Use – Congressional Report On EMR Adoption

For all those practices and practitioners who have been using Medisoft EMR as part of the meaningful use incentive created under the 2009 HITECH Act, you might be interested in hearing the highlights of the annual report on Health IT infrastructure submitted to Congress earlier in the month. It details how far providers have come in implementing electronic patient records into their patient care, and using electronic medical records in a meaningful way.

In order to encourage the use of EMR technology, Congress authorized incentive payments to medical providers who installed and used an EMR, such as McKesson Medisoft, and met specific benchmarks for use. As part of qualifying for the incentives – which amounted to more than $40,000 over the course of the incentive program – providers had to submit detailed reports showing their use of the EMR. #Medisoft Clinical was a popular choice for many small providers, in part because it included all the support needed to generate and submit the reports required for the meaningful use incentives.

Over the past few years, reports on the adoption of electronic patient records via meaningful use incentives have been, to put it mildly, disheartening. Many of the earlier reports suggested that the country was lagging behind the timetable set out in the law, leading many providers to question their participation and time investment in the program. The latest Congressional report is considerably more encouraging. As of early October 2014, HHS reports that three-quarters of eligible professionals and nine out of 10 eligible hospitals received incentive payments from either Medicare or Medicaid incentive programs. That’s a substantial increase from reports from just a year ago.

In addition, more of the providers are using their EMR programs to electronically exchange patient health information with providers outside their organizations – one of the major benchmarks required to qualify for incentives at this point in the program. The percentage of hospitals who have met the benchmark increased from just over 51 percent in 2008 to more than 60 percent this year. In addition, more than 70 percent of hospitals use an EMR like Medisoft to submit prescriptions on the Surescripts Network, and more than half of all prescriptions are new sent electronically. Both of those statistics represent significant advances over earlier numbers.

In addition, HHS reports other milestones achieved in health IT, including:

• Regional Extension Centers support over 100,000 providers who have achieved Stage 1 Meaningful Use, exceeding the HHS goal
• The State Health Information Exchange Program resulted in 47 states and territories having directed exchange available and 34 having query based exchanges available.
• The Health IT Workforce Development Program trained more than 20,000 students in using EMRs.

Medisoft has continued to be in the forefront of health IT development and infrastructure. The latest versions of Medisoft Clinical not only support meaningful use, it also is ready for the ICD-10 update, and provides tools to help offices transition smoothly when the new standards become final in a year.

Why the Push for Electronic Patient Records - Medisoft Clinical EMR

All the new rules and regulations regarding the use of EMRs (or electronic patient records) may feel like a whole lot of hassle with very little reason, but there is a method behind the seeming madness. No, it’s not a ploy to make doctors hand over their money for a pricey piece of software (and as far as that goes, there are extremely affordable options, such as Medisoft). In fact, as more and more practices, clinics and hospitals adopt meaningful use standards for EMRs like Medisoft, both medical practices and the general health of the country as whole are likely to see substantial benefits.

Electronic Patient Records – Benefits for Practitioners

EMRs cut out a lot of the work you’ve been paying other people to do just to keep your office running smoothly. You don’t have to pay someone to chase down a paper chart and make sure that it gets delivered to the exam room before you see the patient. Electronic patient records eliminate the games of catch-me-if-you-can when you call in a consult, and avoid the problem of having patient information scattered across several different organizations. With an EMR like McKesson Medisoft, you can easily search your patient database, look for patterns among patients, manage your practice’s financial end and search individual medical records for information instead of shuffling through a paper chart for five minutes to find five-year-old lab results that are relevant to today’s diagnosis.

On the patient care side, EMRs give you the tools you need to provide the best possible care for your patients. Those tools include automatic reminders of allergies and possible medication conflicts, e-prescribing for ease in writing prescriptions (and to guarantee the prescription you write is the prescription the pharmacist reads). On the financial and billing side, Medisoft provides state-of-the-art patient accounting and billing software with error-checking to help ensure your third-party billing claims are accepted on first submission, reducing the time you have to spend chasing down errors and re-submitting forms.

Electronic Patient Records – Benefits for Consumers

Medisoft also provides many benefits for your patients aside from the tools that allow you to provide better, more consistent care. Depending on your choices, your patients may be able to access their own medical records online, allowing them to check diagnostic results, double-check on medication and medical instructions and ask you questions via an integrated dashboard. In addition, when your patients see a consultant or another doctor who is unfamiliar with them, they won’t have to lug around their entire medical record, or even their X-rays. The consultant can be provided access to the patient’s record and add his or her own notes to it. The ability to access diagnostic test results performed recently will reduce the number of duplicate tests necessary, bringing down the overall cost of care.

Electronic Patient Records – Benefits for Health Care

Like many improvements in infrastructure, switching to electronic patient records that meet specific standards involves significant investment up front. The benefits, however, extend beyond those for individual consumers and medical practices. The automation of many tedious tasks, the elimination of duplicate services and the reduction of errors in billing will combine to drive down costs while increasing the quality of health care overall.

Medisoft is a fully certified EMR for meaningful use purposes. It provides all of the functionality of far more expensive electronic patient records and practice management packages at a price that’s affordable for small to medium practices and independent practitioners. You can learn more about Medisoft and the many benefits it provides from an independent value-added reseller of +Medisoft EMR.

Medisoft EMR/EHR Provides Practical Portability at an Affordable Price

If you’ve been shopping around for practice management software, you may have noticed that different places use different terminology with regard to electronic patient recordslike Medisoft– to wit, some places refer to “electronic medical records” and EMRs, while others talk about “electronic health records” or EHRs. Is there a difference? According to Health IT Buzz, Health.gov’s outreach magazine, the government likes to use EHR rather than EMR – but most people use them interchangeably. When choosing an electronic patient records solution, the important thing is to make sure you choose a suite like Medisoft Clinical, which is certified as a full EMR by the Office of Health and Human Services, and has all the capabilities for meaningful use required for certification.

Benefits of an EMR

Early versions of EMRs were little more than electronic versions of a patient’s paper chart. While there’s value in digitizing data – it’s more easily searchable, for example – the real value of electronic patient records is their portability. A full EMR like McKesson Medisoft does far more than simply store the same patient information in digital form. It also improves the portability and accessibility of that information so that you can provide better care to your patients – and so can any other medical professional involved in their care. Take a look at the ways that using electronic patient records as they’re intended can benefit your patients and health care as a whole:

• Immediately access vital information about your patients

When a program like Medisoft is consistently used according to meaningful use guidelines, you will always be able to access the latest and most important information on all of your patients, old and new, including diagnoses, test results, consultant notes, allergies and current medical profiles.

• Provide vital information to emergency care professionals and consultants seamlessly

When one of your patients is seen in the emergency room or by a consultant, they’ll have immediate access to your patient’s current medical history. This can be life-saving in a situation where the patient isn’t able to provide information about medical allergies, current medications or diagnoses.

• Move patients from one care setting to another seamlessly

Discharge planning is easier when all clinicians are operating from a single unified patient record. Whether the patient is being discharged to another care setting or to home, access to the patient record is vital to community services and other caregivers.

• Allow you to track outcomes across your entire practice

Not only can you track each patient more accurately, using an EHR like Medisoft allows you to track outcomes across your entire patient base, and, by extension, across other practices. By providing anonymous information from your patient database, consistent EHR use will inform treatment best practices for a wide range of diseases and conditions.

Medisoft Clinical is among the most affordably priced full EMR packages for small to medium size practices. It offers all the capabilities of far more expensive electronic patient records software, but is priced within the reach of independent practitioners and small group practices. Talk to a value-added reseller of +MedisoftEMR to learn more about how your practice can benefit from the best electronic patient records package available.

One More Reason to Use Medisoft - Patients Report More Satisfaction with Doctors Who Use EMRs

Just in case you need one more reason to switch from paper records to electronic patient records, there’s this study published last year by Aeffect and +88 Brand Partners, a Chicago advertising agency. The survey asked 1,000 US adults about their experiences with EMRs, including those who have accessed their own or a family member’s electronic patient records and those who visit doctors who use EMRs like Medisoft. The results are something every physician should consider when making a decision about their own adoption of an EMR like McKesson Medisoft Clinical.

75% Of Respondents Use or Want to Use EMRs

According to the survey, one in four Americans currently use EMRs and another 52% would like to use an EMR but don’t for a variety of reasons. The uses for electronic patient records include checking lab results, ordering prescription refills and making appointments. In all, three in every four of your patients would use an EMR patient portal if you provided it for them.

Patients Who Have Used EMRs Are More Satisfied with Their Doctors

The news is even better than that. According to the survey, 82 percent of the patients who have used an EMR say they get better quality care from their medical provider, and that they get clearer communications than other patients who don’t use electronic patient records. Patients who see their doctors using electronic patient records are more satisfied with their doctors than those whose doctors don’t use EMRs like Medisoft (78% satisfied vs. 68%). That may be in part because early adopters are more committed to better communications with patients, but it’s also likely that the use of an EMR aids communications and makes it easier to provide access to important information in a timelier manner.

Many providers are hesitant to implement electronic patient records for various reasons, including the cost and the time to transition from paper records, but the study suggests that there are some excellent reasons for making the leap. Tamara O’Shaugnessy, the vice president of Aeffect, notes that adopting an EMR is likely to yield benefits beyond higher efficiency and more accurate reporting. The study suggests, in fact, that adopting electronic patient records, such as the EMR that’s part of Medisoft Clinical, will enhance patient loyalty and satisfaction.

A Few Other Notes from the Study

Who Uses EMRs: The study suggests that the heaviest users of EMR technology are adult caregivers of adult family members. EMR use is higher in the Western U.S., with up to 34% of residents in western states having at least tried an EMR.

Why Patients Like Electronic Patient Records: 40% say they like having access to their records, 18% feel electronic patient records are more accurate, and 17% appreciate the information sharing and coordination of care made possibly by EMRs. Furthermore, 72% of patients believe that electronic patient records are as secure as or more secure than paper records, and 40 percent believe that tye are more accurate than paper charts.

If you’re still on the fence about adopting an EMR, contact a Medisoft certified vendor to learn about the other benefits provided by electronic patient records.

Medisoft Features Put Patient Security Front and Center

Medisoftpatient accounting and EMR software makes it easier for your practice to comply with HIPAA and HITECH requirements. The latest version of Medisoft, Medisoft V.19, includes a number of security factors to help safeguard your patients’ medical and billing information. These are some of the security measures included in Medisoft EMR that help keep your patients’ information safe.

User Names and Passwords

Medisoft requires users to enter a user name and password in order to access any information in the system. The program meets all best practices and standards for safeguarding that information, including:

• Masks passwords on the login screen so the figures can’t be seen by someone looking over the shoulder
• Configurable options for password requirements let you require more secure passwords. Those options include:
  • Minimum and maximum number of characters
  • Require alphanumeric to require both numbers and letters in a password
  • Set a renewal period to require password changes at regular intervals
  • Set a reuse interval to disallow using the same password within a set period of time
  • Set a maximum allowable attempts to disable account access if too many wrong passwords are entered

• Allows you to configure and assign access levels to individual users. This option lets you ensure that staff and users have access only to the information they need to complete their jobs. For example, if the person who schedules appointments has no need to know diagnostic test results, access control won’t allow them to view test results.
• Park allows a user to leave the computer terminal without exiting the program. When Medisoft is in Park, no one can view or access the program from that terminal without entering a valid user name and password. That allows an operator to step away for a moment without shutting down the program and restarting it when they return.
• Auto Log Off automatically logs a user out after a specified number of minutes have passed with no activity. Logging out prevents anyone else from walking up and gaining access to the system when a user accidentally walks away without shutting down or parking it.

As you can see, Medisoft takes patient privacy seriously, and provides you with the tools you need to keep your patients’ information from prying eyes. For assistance in setting up your Medisoft installation for the highest security, talk to your +MedisoftEHR vendor.