Explanation Of Benefits And Electronic Health Records

In a healthcare world that operates on stringent budgets and margins, we begin to see the need for a higher capacity healthcare delivery system. This in turn puts pressure on the healthcare organizations to ensure higher standards of patient care, and compliance with the reform provisions. However, these are the harsh realities of today’s healthcare environment, a setting in which value does not always equal quality. The use of technology can help to amend some of this by providing higher capacity care without compromising quality; this can be done with the use of such technology as electronic health records (EHRs). This paper will aim to address how EHRs influence healthcare today by expanding upon topics such as funding sources, reimbursement methods, economic factors, socioeconomic factors, business influences, and cost containment.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.

The privacy portion of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is a substantial portion of the law that has indeed gained the most attention and had the widest impacts – more so even than the insurance portability portion. The rules that make up the privacy piece of the law are intended to protect patients from having information about their medical history and medical care released to anyone that doesn’t have a right to know. The Security Rule supports the Privacy Rule in how it affects technological advances in healthcare – specifically, electronic medical records: Electronic Medical Records or Electronic Health Records (EMR’s or EHR’s, respectively). The Breach Notification Rule supports patients’ privacy not only by mandating reporting to

Protecting the privacy of patient information is one of the top priorities of all healthcare providers and is specifically required by various state and federal laws. On February 17, 2009 the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, sometimes referred to as “the stimulus”) included provisions making significant improvement in the privacy and security standards for health information was signed into law by the federal government (http://www.hpsafind.hrsa.gov). Included in this law is $19.2 Billion which is intended to be used to increase the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) by physicians and hospitals; this portion of the bill is called, the Health

The requirement is that eligible professionals and hospitals should be able to demonstrate “meaningful use” of certified EHRs in order to qualify for incentive payments under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (“How to attain,” 2013). Practices who do not adopt EHR may be penalized in the form reduced Medicare reimbursements (Bendix, 2016).

I do not have an electronic patient health record with a provider. I would prefer to use the electronic patient health record because it will be beneficial for managing my healthcare. My health information such as treatments, vaccinations, medications, allergies and other data can be accessed anytime and from anywhere. This feature will allow me to make informed decisions about my health and wellness. Moreover, the healthcare providers can access this information as well and this data access will allow the providers to work in coordination with the patient to provide ideal and safe care. Especially, if there is an emergency situation, the electronic patient health record will provide necessary information to the provider to act quickly and

The Role of Electronic Health Records and Health Information Exchange in the Delivery of Quality Healthcare

The issue that the hospital faces when a patient necessitates emergent care and is a participant of a managed care organization is the potential of not receiving payment or not being in compliance with EMTALA (Fedor & Perez, 2001). Initially, many hospitals faced many unpaid claims by managed care entities because of their inability to contact the provider for authorization for care (Fedor & Perez, 2001). CMS advised hospitals to negotiate with managed care organizations with future contracts to include a provision for authorization after the patient has received stabilizing treatment with the purpose of remaining compliant with EMTALA (Fedor & Perez, 2001). By modifying contractual agreements between managed care organizations, the hospital can provide emergent care appropriately and ensure that claims are paid by managed

In the modern world technology is everywhere and it affects everyone’s daily life. People are constantly attached to cell phones, laptops, and other electronics, which all have affected how people live their lives. Technology is also a large part of the healthcare system today. There are many electronics and technologies that are used in health care, such as electronic health record, medication bar code scanning, electronic documentation, telenursing, and there are many more forms of technology that impact nursing. One technology that stands out is the electronic health record. The electronic health record, also referred to as EHR, is an electronic version of a patient’s chart, and it contains is a list of the patient’s current medications, allergies, laboratory results, diagnoses, immunization dates, images, treatments, and medical history (“Learn EHR Basics,” 2014). The purpose of the electronic health record is to have a patient’s health care record available to health care providers nationwide, but the patient can decide who has access to their record (Edwards, Chiweda, Oyinka, McKay, & Wiles, 2011). The electronic health record is a very important technology in health care and it impacts nurses, nursing care, and has a significant impact on patient outcomes.

As an organization that pride itself on continuous improvement it is time to move away from an electronic medical record (EMR) to an electronic health record (EHR). The organization currently utilizes three different EMR, each for different reasons. This has and will continue to make accessing patient information difficult and inefficient as access to each database is dependent on individuals role within the organization. Overall, this will continue to influence patient care negatively. Currently, only nurses have the ability to enter and change orders, therefore, all orders must be given verbally to the nurse or be written down. Further, the system only contains information of each clinics patients and not across the

The electronic health record is the electronic version of a patients’ medical chart (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2012). The information included in the electronic health record is the patient’s demographics and clinical health information, medical history, list of health problems, progress notes, medications, vital signs, laboratory and radiology reports, and physician orders. The purpose of the electronic health record is to prevent medical errors and improve care delivery to provide a safer patient environment (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015).

The government has been trying to protect patients’ healthcare information since they first introduced The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA). Since that time, technology has paved the way for The Electronic Health Record (EHR). Those that promote the usage of the EHR as the standard of care, strongly believe that the risks of privacy are outweighed by the benefits that it brings. These benefits include, but are not limited to: improved patient care, decreased medical errors, and better collaboration between healthcare providers.

The article, “2016 Report to Congress on HIT Progress,” explains how electronic health record became a highly used resource in the past six years. Most healthcare organizations have decisively moved from the paper based industry to an electronic records system. As the 2016 Report to Congress on HIT Progress shows, at this time, a huge amount of electronic health data exists across the United States, which was not available many years ago. This is a great opportunity for future generations to advance the practitioners’ awareness of decision making towards treatment and quality of care. The electronic health record is now necessary and very convenient for doctors to use towards review patient’s medical history.

With the increasing advances with technology in this day in age, there is no surprise that electronic health records will soon be a major component in all hospitals of the Canadian health care system. Assessment of Electronic Health Record Usability with Undergraduate Nursing Students is an informative article, written by Jones & Donelle, about the increased use of electronic health records within our system and discusses its benefits, as well as difficulties nursing students experience with this new type of technology. It is a new method of technology that will soon replace paper charting and will allow access to patients to communicate with their health care providers, manage their health information, schedule appointments, and have access

It is important to understand that patients are very happy and satisfied when it comes to the electronic health system. This paper will discuss some of the benefits of an electronic health system that patients are enjoying.