Government & Policy

It wasn't the question most viewers had tuned in to hear discussed, but one audience member at the second presidential debate in St. Louis did ask Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump about the Affordable Care Act – offering a more substantive discussion of healthcare than at the first debate.

A George Washington University health policy professor said that Donald Trump, if elected President, could take executive action that would effectively stop the Affordable Care Act in its tracks. 

Many of the 800 accountable care organizations are lagging in critical IT infrastructure, though commercial ACOs are earning more success today than their non-commercial counterparts.

The web-based tools, with advice on how the new law will affect reimbursement, do not require AMA membership.

Recently, planners of an upcoming event asked me some questions and here are the answers: 1.

How can I not comment on the most watched Presidential debate ever? There were 84 million people watching the debate.

Executives involved with the code switch said the first year went smoothly. But they are now expecting a new level of difficulty in the next 18-24 months while coders must be more precise for CMS and private insurers to accept and pay claims. 

"The voices of regulation, defensive medicine, billing and quality measure reporting have been so loud that the primary reason for documentation has been ignored," said Peter Basch, MD, of MedStar Health in Washington.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will ante $350,000 toward a better system of information sharing about cyber threats across healthcare.

Mostashari, now the chief executive at Aledade, discusses how technology must better address the needs of population health and ACOs, and wages a complaint against many EHR vendors.