Posts tagged Inside MTBC
Almost $90m paid out to providers as MU incentives!
Oct 13th
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of E-Health Standards and Services announced yesterday that almost $90 million have been paid out to eligible practices and hospitals under the Meaningful Use EHR incentive program this past September. Robert Anthony, who made the announcement, said that $25 million of the total was paid out to 1400 medical providers and $61 million was paid out to 30 hospitals.
Last month, almost 17,000 eligible providers joined the list of 114,000 – including both hospitals and providers – that have registered for the Meaningful Use program, since its inception on Jan. 1, 2011. Since the program began, CMS has paid over $870 million in incentives, a total which likely reach “$1 billion by the end of this year,” Anthony said.
A number of MTBC’s clients have successfully received their Meaningful Use bonuses with more on the path to doing so. Utilizing MTBC’s state-of-the-art software, providers are able to keep track of their progress in fulfilling MU requirements.
While these figures from CMS are noted by Anthony to be the “earliest of the earliest” data, they do definitely provide proof of the ongoing success of the incentive program. All the thresholds have exceeded what CMS expected would happen this year, Anthony added. All in all, it’s a good sign that the healthcare community is embracing Meaningful Use.
Saad Sawar, Marketing & Communications Lead
Mr. Sawar joined MTBC in the summer of 2011 upon graduation from the University of Michigan. He and his team focus on the promotion of MTBC’s products and services in addition to augmenting MTBC’s nation-wide presence in the Healthcare IT industry.
U.S. Supreme Court Opens New Term with Health Care Storm Looming Overhead
Oct 3rd
The U.S. Supreme Court term opened today with expectations that the Justices will rule on the numerous legal questions surrounding the federal health care reform. Although not formally on the docket, most experts believe that the constitutional challenge to President Obama’s health care overhaul almost certainly will be decided this term.
Since the Affordable Care Act was passed, dozens of federal lawsuits seeking to overturn it have been filed. Appeals courts have ruled on five such challenges and two more currently await appeals courts rulings. The Act remains a political lightning rod with GOP presidential contenders using virtually every debate and speech to criticize it.
The nine justices of the Supreme Court, who serve without seeking election, will have to decide whether to insert themselves into the center of this political maelstrom. But, the Obama administration’s request last week that the justices resolve whether the health care law is constitutional makes it more likely than not that the Court will deliver a verdict by June 2012, just as the Presidential race charges toward the fall campaign.
If as now expected the justices agree to review the law’s constitutionality, those deliberations would certainly define the court’s coming term. Their decision could rank as the court’s most significant since the December 2000 ruling that effectively sealed George W. Bush’s election as president.
Christine Salimbene, Vice President & General Counsel
Ms. Salimbene joined MTBC in 2009 as General Counsel, Vice President and Company Secretary. She and her team focus on mitigating business risk and ensuring compliance with all legal requirements.
Reduce Your No-Shows With Our Automated Appointment Reminder Calls
Sep 11th
Experiencing patient no-show problems? An automated appointment reminder service is the perfect solution for your practice enhancement. When patients fail to show up for an appointment, it costs your practice a lot of money; for every missed appointment you lose a small part of your income, and in the end that adds up.
Many practices hire staff (medical receptionists) for the sole purpose of reminding the patients about their appointments. Appointment reminders in these cases are sent manually by the medical receptionist, which is a labor-intensive and time-consuming task that can keep a medical receptionist busy all day.
This problem, however, can easily be solved by using an automated appointment reminder service, which is one of the most successful strategies for reducing no-shows. The service is available 24/7, and there is no time limit to when patients can be contacted to be reminded of their appointments. A large amount of appointment reminders can be sent consistently to patients with little effort and a fraction of the cost of manual methods through automated appointment reminder systems.
An automated appointment reminder service helps you achieve your goal of providing the best medical care services to your patients. Additional benefits from using such services include streamlining the operation of your business and making your staff more efficient in performing their jobs.
At MTBC we provide the appointment reminder service at no additional charge for all of our 5% billing clients. MTBC’s automated appointment reminder service can help reduce your number of no-shows while also freeing up your staff to focus their time and energy on other critical office tasks. MTBC’s appointment reminder service is entirely integrated with our web-based billing platform as well as MTBC EMR 4.0, and is flexible enough to meet the needs of almost any modern medical practice. Our automated appointment reminder service encompasses the following features:
- Automated, professional communication with the patients.
- Ability to schedule reminders for 1 day, 2 days or more in advance.
- Assisting patients to confirm reschedule or cancel appointments right over the phone.
- Automatic, real-time updates to patient status in your MTBC online scheduler.
Click here to listen to a sample reminder call.