Healthcare IT News - July 2008 - (Page 28)

28 Healthcare IT News ■ July 2008 PAYERS www.HealthcareITNews.com that has NPIs Stephanie for providers Rose-Belcher, working with vice president of CMS to remedy the problem of payer solutions at matching NPIs Enclarity, expects for out-of-netthe claims work providers. rejection rate to BCBS of Massachusetts rise again. deployed the Portico NPI Solution for its NPI system of record and the Portico NPI solution to implement crosswalk rules it had developed, said Tanya Trombly, director of provider support. As a result of its overall NPI efforts, BCBSMA experienced NPI-related issues with less than 1 percent of claims. Stephanie Rose-Belcher, vice president of payer solutions at Enclarity, expects the claims rejection rate to rise again with negative unintended consequences. One of its payer clients has seen a 25 percent increase in paper receipts as providers use this method to get around the NPI mandate for electronic transactions. While IT solutions are being deployed, she said the confusion over multiple NPI numbers, structures and interpretations will continue to dog the industry. Corporate culture, change management and the relationship between the general payer community and the provider community also played a significant role in the NPI problems, said Doug Spence, senior vice president of development for Foresight. Additionally, Spence said, past exploitation by software vendors has left executive management seeing IT as expenditure rather than an investment. A strategic investment in healthcare IT infrastructure as part of an integral solution would have addressed the NPI mandate in a significant way, he said. ■ More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: NPI 0708 Highmark to fund e-prescribing for docs nPI PITTSBURGH Continued from page 1 – Pennsylvania-based health insurer Highmark Inc. is contributing $29 million to help physicians acquire e-prescribing technology for their practices. The initiative is an alternative to a similar program Highmark announced in 2005. Kenneth Melani, MD, Highmark president and chief executive officer, said Highmark would provide the funds to help finance healthcare IT for Highmark network physicians in their service area. He said the company hopes to be able to begin administering grants to physicians later this summer. Highmark intends to pay up to 75 percent of the cost for a physician’s office to acquire, install and implement an e-prescribing system, up to a maximum of $7,000 per physician, with the physician’s practice to pay the remaining balance. More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: HIGHMarK 0708 ● The payer is making system adjustments and continuing its provider education program regarding appropriate formats for billing with the NPI. Horizon BCBS of New Jersey’s provider data management software upgrade enabled storage of NPI information and matching of newly submitted claims with NPIs to the provider data already on file, said spokesman Daniel Emmer. The payer is upgrading its software to automatically import data from a database ● IBH Continued from page 27 charts and free up physical space. Eventually, all behavioral health and employee assistance program claims will be processed online. The implementation wasn’t done primarily to save money, Bosanac said. IBH, however, has seen a decrease in mailroom resources and the addition of one administrative person to handle the company’s growth, which has been 50 percent in the last two years. He also anticipates a 30 percent-to-40 percent increase in case manager productivity. Doug Miller, director of information systems for IBH, added that IBH’s internal case managers and in-house physicians have embraced the ability to view all relevant content in a single user interface. With fewer resources and costs, payers can use Microsoft partners’ line of business applications and existing Microsoft 2007 Office system to automate traditionally people-driven processes that improve both the top and bottom lines, said Dennis Schmuland, MD, U.S. health plan industry director for Microsoft. “The momentum is behind Microsoft Office SharePoint Server,” he said. With 100 million licenses sold and $1 billion in total sales expected to be surpassed in 2008, it is the fastest-growing product in Microsoft’s history. “This is a new class of collaboration-enabled business processes that is bridging the gap between team productivity and the line of business applications,” Schmuland said. ■ More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: IBH 0708 ● http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITnews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9562 http://HealthcareITnews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9500 http://www.himssanalytics.org http://www.himssanalytics.org http://www.himssanalytics.org http://HealthcareITnews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9560

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare IT News - July 2008

Healthcare IT News - July 2008 Contents IT’s Financial Link eRx Power SOA Q&A Bent on Wireless Digital Switch IT Legacy Change Agent Panasonic 'Book' Taking a Shift Computer Types

Healthcare IT News - July 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.