McKesson, a company obviously quite proud of its standing as 16th on the Fortune 500 ranking, today
announced that it has acquired HealthCom Partners LLC, a provider of patient billing solutions meant to simplify the financial interactions of healthcare providers with their patients. HealthCom's online self-service PatientCompass application provides consolidated billing on a single statement. Hospitals using it have measured its effectiveness with metrics such as credit card payment rate, postage and processing costs, number of account receivable days, amount of bad debt, and patient satisfaction. This "virtual business office" can be embedded in the health care provider's own web site.
more...
May 25, 2006
Related topics:
Mergers & Acquisitions, IT & software
Gainsharing - letting doctors reap savings that they build into recommended care - is to some a great cost cutting tool. To others it's a built-in conflict of interest, an obstacle to innovation and proper care, or maybe even a violation of anti-kickback statutes. In this primer Hospital Buyer provides extensive background on the legal, ethical, cost and outcome-related sides of this issue and looks at how it might impact hospitals, physicians and patients.
In its section 5007, the
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (pdf, see page 37) requires gainsharing demonstration projects to be up and running no later than January 1, 2007. The idea is to share hospital cost savings with physicians to the extent that they helped produce these savings. Patients will have to be notified that their treatment is falling into this type of system. Quality and efficiency of care will be monitored and an independent third party will review the elements of the demonstration. The administration will have to report to Congress through milestones at the end of 2007 and 2008, and submit its final report no later than May 1, 2010.
more...
May 24, 2006
Related topics:
Legal & legislative, Ethics & Scandals, Cost savings
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