Reimbursement

There is a 50 percent likelihood of a complete government shutdown over the coming months, said former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich at Monday's opening keynote at the HIMSS11 conference in Orlando, Fla.

The debut of HIMSS' mini-conference HIT X.0 drew hundreds of attendees to a keynote featuring Aneesh Chopra, U.S. technology czar, and John Glaser, CEO of the Health Services Business Unit at Siemens.

BancTec, a Dallas-based company specializing in business solutions, business process outsourcing and infrastructure services, is showcasing its Healthcare Remittance Automation product during the HIMSS11 conference taking place this week in Orlando.

In an effort to increase efficiency and improve cash recovery on commercial bills, eligibility efforts and patient-pay accounts, the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, known as the MED, will be using Connance Agency Manager and Scoring with PARO charity care analytics.

Converting to the ICD-10 medical diagnosis code set is not for the faint of heart. It's likely to be complicated, expensive and may entail a loss of productivity that could take five-to-six years to gain back, according to experts. The conversion is federally mandated by Oct. 1, 2013, and unlike many times in the past, there's no indication it will be postponed.

When the Joint Commission's new standards for hospital accreditation based on language access take full effect a year from now, many hospitals might not make the cut and could lose critical funding.

Two key elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are the requirement that health insurance carriers accept all applicants (what's called guarantee issue) matched by a requirement that individuals obtain health care coverage or face a penalty (referred to as an individual mandate). The PPACA was not the first bill take this approach to move toward more universal coverage. In response to then President Bill Clinton's health care reform proposal, 19 Republican Senators joined by two Democrats, put forward the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993.

Preferred Care Partners has entered the Medicaid market with the launch of CareFlorida, a new health plan serving Medicaid recipients in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Preferred Care Partners is one of the largest private Medicare-Advantage plans in Florida.

A report from Moody's Investors Services shows that changes in employee benefits plan designs as well as new medical management techniques such as employee wellness programs are playing a large role in reducing demand for healthcare services.

Craneware, Inc., a provider of automated revenue integrity solutions for the U.S. healthcare market, has acquired Nashville-based ClaimTrust, Inc., a Software-as-a-Service revenue cycle technology vendor.