Medical Ecomonics.com is one of our favorite online sites. Lots to read, lots to think about.

Well, they came up with a whopper recently showing the pitfalls of the new EHRs and coding. It seems not only to bog down health care providers, but create incorrect coding. An audit show up to 95 percent errors.

Uh, 19 out of 20 wrong? How long would you stayed employed getting 1 of 20 right?

The long, detailed story is worth taking the time because you’ll see the arguments for more human interaction when it comes to coding. During sales presentations when doctors say why should they hire you when they can now do it themselves online, whip out the statistics from this unbiased news sources that exactly explains why you’re needed.

Medical Economics.com

A west coast company layed off its medical billing coders after a vendor told the health care practice that it could do billing itself. After all, about 15 to 20 percent of EHR-based practices are doing so.

An audit found they missed more than $1 million in billing. Sure sounds like billers are worth their weight in gold or at least what they get paid.

Medical Economics.com tells the fascinating story on what’s going wrong with companies try to do coding themselves. It makes for great sales presentation material.

By the way, the company not only rehired three billers, but added two more.

The Gray Lady of Gotham City writes today that the medical community’s technology is a decade behind, calling health care providers “laggards” when updating their computers.

At least the medical community is growing, unlike the newspaper world. We’ll see whose computers are still running a decade from now.

Anyway, the link below to the story makes some interesting points when talking to clients on their needs. The $19 billion in stimulus money to create electronic medical records will shift health care into more of computer-oriented tasks, which is good news for you if joining the revolution and expanding your services. They more they need, the more you should do.

New York Times

Blue Cross . . . Aetna . . . Blue Cross . . . Aetna — does it feel like you’re in a rut dealing with the same companies?

An American Medical Association study showed most of the 314 metro areas with Health Maintenance Organization and Preferred Provider Organization plans are often dominated by a major insurer like a Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee, Wellpoint, Aetna or UnitedHealthcare. The second-largest competitor is usually one of those four companies.

What’s it mean? Lack of competition means higher premiums by patients and employers and decreased earnings by doctors, says the AMA.

One of ClaimTek’s affiliates was telling us a hilarious story over how she gained her first client. A doctor who thought she was someone else during the whole sales pitch. When discovering his error afterwards, he still was so impressed that the doctor signed with her anyway.

It made us think of how many times crazy things like this happens. Tell us your favorite story of getting business.

Don’t say you weren’t warned. The machines will soon take us over. This spoof shows hospital workers being overrun by the electronic medical records.

It’s OK to laugh. You know you want to.

President Barack Obama proposed $50 billion annually to implement electronic medical records by 2014.

In a Jan. 8 speech at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., the president said electronic records were needed to mitigate rising health care costs.

“This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests,” Obama said.

“To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that, within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized. This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests.

“But it just won’t save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs; it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system.”

Congressional leaders plan to include $20 billion in the coming $825 billion stimulus package to develop privacy technology to safeguard medical records.

Check out more in the New York Times

New York Times

Add another country to the growing list of those accepting electronic medical claims. The Oasis Hospital in the Emirate of Abu Dhabiis now taking e-claims from 14 health insurance companies.

“E-claims will soon become mandatory among all health care providers,” said Joseph Boulos, General Manager of Nas, a Third Party Administrator (TPA). “Competition is definitely healthy because it lets the market decide who is the fittest in terms of products and services. Daman used to be the sole health insurance provider, now there are 30 others and this number will increase by time.”