Today's MGMA session on Web 2.0 was a very interesting session to sit in on, not only because of the subject matter, but also because of the audience interaction.

While always uncertain, the future seems more so in economic hard times. How can you know how best to respond to changes in patient volume or reimbursement?

There remains a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the economic stimulus package incentives and the steps practices must take to receive these incentives. This session will provide an overview of HIT, EHR and TeleHealth incentives related to the stimulus package and prepare practices for what they must do to adopt and "meaningfully use" certified EHRs . An HIT and government affairs expert will help create a roadmap for the term "meaningful use" and inform practices on how to follow this map.

The uninsured, higher co-pays and consumer-directed plans are changing the dynamics of the physician economic relationship. Patients seek less costly care while others approach decisions in consumer retail mode. Fortunately these trends are spurring adoption of Internet tools that deliver accessible, affordable and convenient care. Physicians easily interact online with patients on non-urgent symptoms. Point-of-service and self-service capabilities drive collections and develop payment plans. Testimonials illuminate the convergence of clinical and financial Web tools translated to savings and better outcomes.

As medical groups feel more pressure from the government, payers and other third parties to get health information online as part of emerging performance-based reimbursement programs, many providers are challenged with how best to automate their practices and adequately participate in these programs. This session will explore how some of the country's largest academic medical groups to solo practices to emerging care deliver organizations, like retail clinical, are now leveraging software-enabled services (SeS) in order to better document and report clinical and financial data as part of performance-based reimbursement initiatives.

Leah Cohen, a Government Affairs Representative for MGMA, led off her presentation today by announcing to the large crowd that she is “only the messenger.” It was a great way to break the ice, and her comment got many laughs from the physicians in the audience who were looking to her to sort out some of the legislation that affects them.

Dr. Michelle Koury began her session by explaining the goals of her session: to help attendees learn to organize leadership to pursue and achieve accreditation, apply strategies and tools to assist in accreditation success, and understand the organizational, financial, regulatory, and political advantages of accreditation.

The easiest way to avoid any kind of HIPAA problems is to make sure that your patients’ personal health information (PHI) is secure – by definition, secure PHI cannot be breached. Best to get prepared now because as HIPAA informs, the penalties they-are-a-comin.

Although private practices are usually using debt financing because they don’t have the funds, hospitals do have the funds. And if you don’t join them, they’ll go buy their own physician who is in your specialty.

This session focuses on the recently released ICD-10 regulation and its impact on your practice. This session addresses critical issues such as practice compliance dates; the intersection of ICD-10 and the latest version of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) electronic transactions standards; how physician practices can address the many challenges ICD-10 will bring in the areas of payer contracting, encounter documentation, staff training, research and benchmarking data, and software modifications; and how to work with vendors and payers to comply with this mandate.

Anne Huben-Kearney, vice president, risk management, ProMutual Group, Boston, MA, today presented “EMR with Clinical Risk Management = Patient Safety: A Model for Success.” We spoke with her to learn about her experiences working with a health information exchange and professional liability carrier and how and why risk management components can and should be implemented into an EMR.

Today’s discussion on EHR incentive payments and implementation included a lot of issues that regular MDNG readers are familiar with: HITECH, “meaningful use,” and annual incentives. Although it may seem like the same old song and dance, the reality is that all those dates you’ve been hearing about are fast approaching.

While there is a growing demand for “interoperability” between hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and physician practice information systems, the cost often exceeds the potential benefits. In this session, participants learned how to make participation in a health information exchange (HIE) financially viable.

Dahl and Rahman sought to help attendees analyze performance systems management and apply applications to their practice, establish core measurements and define collection processes, and compare improvement tools, such as root-cause analysis and “what-if” analyses.

Electronic Health Records – the three words that you’ve probably heard a billion times. They are the words that lead to other words that you hear over and over again: incentives, penalties, integration, etc. Many physicians admittedly hesitate to implement an EHR in their practice for numerous reasons. But aside from the big ones, such as cost, security, and the time it takes, there’s one major barrier – interoperability.

Decision-making in medical practices is often stalled by competing interests, conflicting goals and misunderstandings. In this session, you will learn from real-life examples why impasses occur and the problems they create for physicians, staff and patients. You will discover how to gain agreement through using a voting matrix and how to test alternatives and devise voting options. In addition, you will learn the role of confidentiality in protecting future working relationships in the medical practice.

Today’s panel discussion on improving the quality of care through quality, innovation, and service included some all star presenters. If this team were a baseball team they’d be the Yankees; we’re talking about some big names. We have Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, president and chief executive officer of Cleveland Clinic; Dr. William Wright, Executive Medical Director Colorado Permanente Medical Group; and Dr. Gary S. Kaplan, Chairman and CEO of the Virginia Mason Health System.