2013: The Year of ACAICD10MU2ACOPCMHRCM

Carolyn Hartley, President, CEO, Physicians EHR

In a recent health IT project debrief, one of my favorite CFOs identified 2013 as the year of Strategic Planning.  For her, 2013 will be the Year of ACAICD10MU2ACOPCMHRCM Plan to help the practice roll out the Affordable Care Act, ICD-10, Meaningful Use Stage 2, Accountable Care Organizations, Patient Centered Medical Home – oh, and revenue cycle management…enough to make any sensible practice administrator ask for a raise, a European vacation, a really good timetable and help~!

She called 2014, “The Year to Fear” and had no intention of adding payment uncertainties to the already troubled payment process. In fact, she has asked that they focus on two things:  patient care and data integrity.

To that end, she is mapping out the benefits of each plan, the resources needed to meet each initiative, and then crosswalking incentives to show the importance of clean data to her providers. “Standard operating procedures for operational and clinical functions will be the secret weapon for 2014 preparedness,” she said. “Physicians can still be creative and compassionate in the delivery of care, but the way we input data will be done uniformly.”  Without a standardized approach, she says they run the risk of getting lost in the swirl of government and payer initiatives.

In a way, she’s moderately grateful that Meaningful Use Stage 2 will be a bit more lenient than expected. In stabilizing workflows, they will better understand what they have in their EHR, but her overall goal is that providers focus on data integrity and clinical outcomes.

Carolyn P. Hartley serves as provider/clinic advocate managing the health IT implementation process. Most recently, she and her team of EHR project managers have been called upon to diagnose and rescue implementations for oncologists, nephrologists, neurologists and community health centers in 23 states. Carolyn also serves as contracted EHR technical facilitator to national and state medical societies. She is lead author of 15 books focused on health IT adoption. Two of her 2011 AMA bestselling books include EHR Implementation: A Step by Step Guide for the Medical Practice, 2nd Edition, and HIPAA Plain & Simple, 2nd Edition.