Better Medical Reports for Life Insurance

By Michael Challiner  |   Submitted On August 21, 2006

In about every four in ten cases when someone applies for Life Insurance, the insurer has to obtain a medical report from a General Practitioner.

They need the reports when someone has declared that they have a medical condition on their life insurance application form. The applicant then has to give consent that the insurance company can gain a medical report from their GP. The GP gets called on to supply information about the specifics of that medical condition and any other relevant information.
But despite the fact that these are often costly to get hold of for insurance companies, there have been cases where GPs have not been supplying the quality information that they need. In some cases, they simply print out the computerised records of their patients and send them to the insurers.

This is not just a problem because insurers have paid the doctors to supply specific reports, but that this approach means that they often do not get the specific information they need. And on top of this, the GP winds up breaching their patient's confidentiality because the insurance company gets extra information about the applicant's medical state that they do not need to know. It is a situation both the British Medical Association (BMI) and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) would not want to occur and goes against the agreement between both parties that medical information could be obtained for the purpose of Life Insurance applications.
But because of concerns, a new agreement between both the BMI and ABI has been made where GPs have to provide high quality reports to the insurance companies for fees that will consistently rise by 6% over five years.

The fees were re-set as part of the negotiation process for reports, supplementary reports and medical examinations.

An ABI spokesman for health insurance says that the reports help people to gain much needed health insurance, such as life insurance policies that they would otherwise not normally be able to obtain.

"This agreement is good news for customers because again the BMA has pledged to uphold high standards from doctors. This includes making sure that doctors fill in forms personally and accurately, rather than simply sending printouts of medical records, which does not give the insurer the information that it needs," he says. "The deal provides both stability and certainty."
For a GP report that needs to be obtained in the year from 2006 -2007, the cost is £74.70. That increases to £79.20 for the next year and £84.00 after that. For a supplementary report the cost increases from £19.10 this year, to £20.20 the year after that and £21.40 for the year after that again.

And medical examinations will this year cost £82.20, increasing to £87.10 in the year after that and then £92.30 in the following year.
The BMA tells GPs as part of the guidance in the new agreement that they need to recognise that life assurance is a "social good" and of benefit to patients at significant points in their lives.
And that, as with other fee paid work, the reports should be completed thoroughly to justify the fees.

Get great articles based around life assurance [http://www.life-insurance-underwriters.co.uk] from the life insurance underwriters.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Michael_Challiner/18343

Medical ID Bracelets - Knowledge is Power

By Lisa Hobyak  |   Submitted On March 03, 2009

There is no better example of" knowledge is power" like wearing a medical ID bracelet. These bracelets are designed to quickly notify emergency responders of a patient's condition. Vital information engraved on the back of the bracelet allows the medical community to assess life saving information without the patient's response.

Despite the benefits, many people opt not to wear their medical ID bracelet because it is ugly or "not cool." Teenagers and young adults are particularly sensitive to their image. They don't want to be labeled as "different" and certainly don't want to wear jewelry advertising their condition. Undeniably and without a doubt, wearing a medical ID bracelet saves lives.

Fact: It is estimated that more than 150 people die a year from a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) to food. At least 40 deaths occur annually in the United States from reactions to insect stings. A severe allergic reaction occurs in .5-5% of the U.S. population as a result of insect stings.

Fact: The prevalence of food allergy among children under the age of 18 increased 18% from 1997 to 2007.
Fact: As many as 15% to 24% of people in the U.S. will experience acute urticaria (hives) and/or angioedema at some point in their lives.

Fact: Many diabetics suffering from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) have been treated as being drunk.

Fact: Over 400 Americans die annually from an allergic reaction to penicillin.

Manufacturers of medical ID bracelets have been striving to design bracelets that mix fashion and style with function and purpose. Wearing an ID bracelet on your left wrist identifying your specific medical information, can speak for you when you can't.

Hope Paige Designs offers a trendy and fashionable alternative to the traditional medical ID bracelet. Visit http://www.hopepaige.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Lisa_Hobyak/284487

Mandatory Medical Transcription Credentialing

By Kathy Nicholls  |   Submitted On December 15, 2010

Much has been said lately about the AHDI House of Delegates resolution last August to support mandatory credentialing for anyone who accesses patient health information. That would mean mandatory credentialing for medical transcriptionists. While many do feel it may be a good idea, I want to explore this a bit more. How does it come about? In the end, I believe it's about having a compelling story.

What's the Compelling Story?

AHDI has started a campaign for speaking to legislators and talking about the need for mandatory credentialing. So what's the compelling story that might make that happen? Without a compelling story of why this should happen, I don't see legislators buying it. The lobbying power of our industry just isn't that strong.

A compelling story must give a reason for doing something. It should have solid, logical facts behind it. It should also show a benefit for doing something. If you think about the story behind something like the Amber alert laws, you can see a compelling story. Children were being kidnapped. The facts were pretty easy to put together. The benefit? If notices were put out faster, perhaps the child could be found faster and returned home with less harm done to them. A compelling story. So what's our compelling story? Get out your thinking caps here because I want to challenge your thinking a bit. I'm putting on my devil's advocate hat as I believe these are tough questions we need to have answers for.

Patient Safety

We can stand up and loudly proclaim "it's health records, it is the patient's story! Surely something of that importance should have a credentialed person working with it to assure correct information and patient safety!" The mantra of patient safety is a big one in the healthcare industry. Perhaps attaching to that would help the cause. If we use this one, we also need to be prepared to explain what kind of harm has been done because of a medical transcriptionist who wasn't credentialed. I'm just not sure we have that data. Because so much of health care documentation is done after the fact, it's unlikely to get anyone to really believe that the documents were used in real-time to provide patient care. In addition, there's documentation out there where we have loudly proclaimed that no documentation is complete until it is authenticated by the physician who dictated the report. If that's the case, isn't it the physician's responsibility to be sure that what is reflected is accurate? In addition, with the move to using medical scribes to document healthcare encounters, we now have an entire industry that has no credentialing process and no standards of practice. If they can do that successfully, where's our compelling story?

It's all About Privacy

The argument could be made with all of the new regulations from HIPAA and the HITECH Act that the information is more secure with a credentialed person. After all, that knowledge would be a part of what is tested in the credentialing process. Hmmm, but what about the HIPAA rules that say all persons must have training and education in privacy? And while the HITECH Act is new, HIPAA certainly isn't. Those rules became effective five years ago and we weren't banging the drum of privacy needing a credentialed workforce at that time. Was the MT who threatened to release medical information over the Internet several years ago credentialed? Have any of the data breaches that have been reported been by a medical transcriptionist, and if so, was that person credentialed? I frankly don't know the answer to that. So, where's the compelling story here?

It Will Save Money in Health Care

In The Case for a Credentialed Workforce published by AHDI in 2007, the case is made that having a credentialed workforce can save money. Here's the quote:

Every time a report is transcribed by an MT with a low level of knowledge and interpretive skill,
the healthcare system as a whole takes the following risks:
• That the MT will misinterpret key clinical data being dictated, resulting in the potential for this to be overlooked by the provider at the authentication point, and for the error to become part of the patient's permanent record, upon which ongoing care decisions are based.
• That the MT will miss or fail to hear critical information, resulting in omitted words or phrases that the provider may not recognize are missing at the authentication point.
• That the MT will fail to recognize dictated errors and inconsistencies and therefore neglect to flag them to the dictator's attention, again with the potential of those errors becoming part of the patient's permanent record.
• That the MT will struggle with challenging dictation or unfamiliar terminology, leaving blanks in the record that have to be routed back to and filled in by the provider or forwarded to a QA department for review and correction - processes that suspend the forward progress of that record.

All of the above scenarios represent widespread impact and immeasurable cost to healthcare on a daily basis. How much does it cost a healthcare facility for records to be suspended in QA and correction rather than being coded and processed for reimbursement? Great attention is often paid to how long dictated reports sit on the dictation system before they are transcribed, but how closely are healthcare facilities and providers watching the delay between transcription and the release of that document for continuity of care and reimbursement?

What seems to be missing is how often those things happen with CMTs and RMTs vs. those who don't have a credential. There is also no discussion about whether it may cost more to employ a credentialed MT compared to one who isn't credentialed.

It's About Efficiency

One thing we have to be prepared to answer is how will this increase efficiency in health care? As leaders speak to legislators, they often share their own story. That will lead to questions about whether they are credentialed themselves. Then we'll go to the bigger question. How many MTs are there currently? Estimates several years ago were at around 250 to 300 thousand. The next logical question will be and how many of those are credentialed? The last numbers I saw showed there were around 3,000 CMTs, and I'm not sure how many RMTs. Still that represents less than 1% of the workforce, allowing for a growing workforce (based on the US Department of Labor information that projects growth in this industry through 2012). Will requiring a credential lead to greater efficiency, or will it lead to the industry scrambling to figure out what other ways they can utilize to get the documentation done? Again, what's the compelling story?

Is There a Compelling Story?

When speaking with legislators in an attempt to make this kind of change, you have to have data. You also need that compelling story about why it's necessary. Do we have a compelling story or simply a wish to see this happen?

What's your take? What IS our compelling story here?

Kathy Nicholls has been involved in the MT industry for over 30 years and is currently the president of the Medical Transcription Training Alliance, which offers guidance on available MT training programs. She also operates the MT Tools Online [http://mttoolsonline.com] website, which provides continuing education for healthcare documentation professionals. Nicholls is also the published author of the "Stedman's Guide to the HIPAA Privacy Rule."

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kathy_Nicholls/500712

Why Is Mobile So Important To Medical Website Design?

By Michiel Van Kets  |   Submitted On October 16, 2011

The current smartphone age began back in 2007 when Apple launched the iPhone and changed the way in which consumers perceived the possibilities that should be available to them via their mobile handsets. Of course it could be claimed that the creation of the App Store digital download service in mid-2008 was what really turned people on to the idea of using their smartphone for more than just making calls and sending texts.

By opening up the platform to third party developers and presenting software firms with a huge, diverse, global audience it was possible for innovative, practical and fun content to be generated simultaneously. This means that while school kids use smartphones for gaming and socialising, medical professionals are leveraging the technology in the workplace each and every day to make many common tasks easier to achieve than ever before.

There have been varying surveys published concerning the usage of smartphones by medical professionals. In 2010 the Spyglass Consulting Group published a study which implied 94 per cent of physicians have taken advantage of smartphones. However, this included using them for simple communication as well as viewing medical information or managing their business and personal lives, which may be a little broad of a definition from which it is possible to draw any definitive conclusions.

A separate report from Jackson & Corker published in 2011 shows that 80 per cent of doctors take advantage of medical smartphone apps on a day to day basis in their practices. This gives a far firmer indication that medical professionals are getting used to harnessing smartphones on a regular basis, allowing them to better interact with patients and deal with the business of helping to heal people.

Unsurprisingly it is the younger generation of physicians who are taking up smartphones in the greatest numbers, with recent graduates more likely to use digital technology during their working hours than those who are coming to the end of their careers. A breakdown of the figures in this report shows that physicians working in emergency rooms are the most frequent smartphone users while clinical pathologists reside at the other end of the scale, rarely using their mobiles.

It is clear that as the next wave of medical professionals enters the job market there will be a far larger proportion of doctors taking advantage of smartphone functionality when practicing health care. This means that any company which is in the business of supplying medical information or services will need to prepare for this sea change.

Medical website development for desktop platforms is quite different from the kind of process a medical website designer will need to go through when creating a smartphone-friendly service. A medical website design needs to take into account the fact that while a desktop user will have a large display combined with a keyboard and a mouse for interaction with the content, a mobile user will not have any of these things.

Modern smartphones can have an array of different interfaces, but in general you will be best placed to create your medical website design so that it is accessible to all users. You should focus your medical website designer on building something that those with touch screen handsets can access without impediment. This is why your medical website designer will need to eschew links embedded in text which can be fiddly to access precisely with fingers in favour of larger buttons and menu items that lend themselves to touchscreen interactivity.

The actual size of the mobile screen also needs to be taken into account. Dense, text-heavy pages with small fonts and broad margins will leave users scrolling, zooming and flicking all over the place and make for an unsatisfying experience when viewed through a mobile browser. This is why medical website development has to allow for a flexible, elastic design that can be resized to fit screens ranging from 2.4 inches to 4.3 inches and beyond. In fact with the emergence of the tablet market in the last year you will also need to consider the number of doctors who may well be viewing your site from an iPad or Android 3.0 device, which presents a whole new slew of challenges and opportunities.

One thing which many companies forget when fashioning their medical website design for mobiles is that while there are obvious limitations to scaling it down for the platform, the depth of the content and the comprehensiveness of the features cannot be similarly curtailed. Users will feel let down if they cannot go onto your mobile site and carry out exactly the same functions as they would expect on their laptop or desktop computer. This means it is not sensible for a medical website designer to truncate the amount of data available or cut out key components of your main site because you do not feel it will fit appropriately onto a mobile platform. There are always different routes around potential obstructions and with expert advice you can help sidestep any issues as and when they arise.

The real goal for any medical website development process is to provide consistency and compatibility across all platforms. There is no use creating a mobile site if it is completely detached from your main desktop portal, no matter how solid its functionality. On the flip side if you have a fully integrated mobile site that combines all the aspect of your desktop storefront but presents it in a sloppy manner or one which is overly convoluted and thus complicated for doctors to get to grips with you will be making life hard for yourself and for your users.

The real thrust of this piece is that mobile considerations have to be given priority when embarking upon medical website development in the modern era. Since the smartphone and now the tablet are reigning supreme and could soon become the main method by which people access the internet, desktop sites will begin to play second fiddle to mobile platforms. This means making the investments and changes to your medical website design now will leave you in a great position to continue prospering in an increasingly portable world.

Michiel Van Kets writes article about Genetic Digital, a medical website designer website that helps pharmaceutical, medical and healthcare companies achieve sales and marketing objectives via the practical use of web technology and digital marketing. Genetic Digital offers a friendly team of digital marketing experts with a proven track record in delivering medical website design, digital marketing, medical website development, search engine optimisation services for your sector.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Michiel_Van_Kets/98977

Making Things Easy With No Medical Term Life Insurance

By Sharon Taylor  |   Submitted On March 29, 2008

There are literally several hundred different online companies that are offering life insurance that does not require a physical examination. These no medical term life insurance policies may sound appealing when you first look at them, but it is absolutely vital that you read the fine print because not all plans are created equally. Some no medical exam policies require that the applicants for this type of insurance pay higher premiums. The applicant may even still be required to undergo a physical exam within one to five years after being qualified for the policy.

Pre-Existing Medical Conditions and No Medical Life Insurance

If you suspect that you may have a pre-existing medical condition, or if you are unsure of what the results of a medical examination may be, it may be a wiser choice for you to try to apply for no medical life insurance which allows you to forgo the exam all together. Insurance carriers do tend to share information with one another, such as the Medical Information Board or MIB that passes around client information to prevent applicants from taking advantage of the system.

So if you apply with one term life insurance provider and are disqualified for the insurance, other local insurance companies will be aware of this and you will have difficulty qualifying for the policy you seek.

Unfortunately, the MIB can make it a lot more difficult for people to get high quality insurance. So if you are looking for well-suited policies, rather than dealing with interested parties to find quotes for you, you can simply jump online and request quotes for no medical life insurance online.

Applying for No Medical Life Insurance

By applying online for no medical life insurance, you can greatly improve your chances of being approved for term insurance. Without having to deal with an insurance provider face to face, you can greatly simplify the process. Most websites offering quotes allow you to apply quickly and easily, filling out the necessary information as well as a basic personal history and health history that will let the insurance provider know that you are in good health and have no pre-existing terminal conditions that would disqualify you from being approved for a policy.

Fill out the necessary information, and in most cases you will be provided with information such as the type of policy you qualify for, what your premium will be and what steps are left to secure the policy. If you are approved, you should be able to print out your new no medical life insurance policy immediately, and your term insurance will go into effect as early as the following day. If you are not approved for what you applied for, you should be able to contact the website providing the insurance policy and inquire why you were not approved.

No medical term life insurance [http://www.hotosspot.com/2007/11/life-insurance.html] is a great option for a variety of different people. If you do not have a terminal illness and you are not living in a nursing home, you will probably be approved for a policy. If you do not want to deal with a medical exam, or you simply want term insurance as quickly and easily as you can obtain it, this is a great option for you to consider.

Sharon Taylor writes articles for eQUOTE Life Insurance. eQUOTE is a leading Internet life insurance company providing families with no-obligation term life insurance quotes, no medical term life insurance and other helpful family insurance resources since 1999.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Sharon_Taylor/89109

Internet Software Strategy For Patient Relationship Management and Electronic Medical Billing

By Yuval Lirov  |   Submitted On May 20, 2007

Patients increasingly use Internet to research, locate, receive, validate, and complain about doctor's services. Although most health care providers (79%) had cautioned patients about the unreliability of health information on the Internet, 80% of adult Internet users have searched for health or medical information online. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by Medical Broadcasting Company and Nielsen/NetRatings, two out of three Americans turn to the Internet before their doctor visits to research their condition and prepare questions. After their visits, these patients typically do more Internet research to validate what their doctor told them and find answers to questions they didn't think to ask.

Multiple surveys show that practices with personal IT services have significant competitive advantage in terms of patient perception. For instance, 75% of U.S. adults would like to schedule their doctor visits via the Internet and receive e-mail reminders. But so few practices offer such services that only 4% of patients use Internet to schedule appointments. Moreover, while 67% of patients would like to receive their lab results via e-mail, only 2% currently do. Such large differences between expected and delivered levels of information access must transform into significant differences in service value perception. It behooves the doctors to adopt Internet technology to help patients search for health information online and use it for patient relationship management and practice development.

The first step in achieving this goal is to establish website presence. A typical physician's website might have the following content components:

About Practice

1. Mission statement - patient-care philosophy
2. A short history of the practice
3. Office hours
4. Contact information
5. Phone numbers
6. eMail addresses
7. Location and driving directions

About Physicians

1. Credentials and specialization information about each physician
2. Hospital affiliations

Patient Corner

1. Links to patient education materials
2. Patient forms
3. Appointment scheduling
4. Pre-registration
5. eMail correspondence with physicians
6. Lab results
7. Electronic prescription refills
8. Home monitoring device configuration
9. Automated health alerts
10. Personal health records

Electronic Medical Billing

1. A list of accepted insurance plans
2. FAQ on Billing, e.g., explanation of statement
3. Account balance
4. Payment history

A savings-based ROI justification for office automation using a cost-driven metric compares operations costs before and after implementing a technical solution. For instance, the national average for staff in a primary-care practice is about five employees per physician. Anecdotal evidence about practices with patient-focused website with integrated EMR shows less than 2.5 employees per physician. Yet technology benefits to the practice have evolved from simple automation, to paperless office infrastructure, to patient attraction, to patient retention and loyalty management. Once the patients learn to expect a patient-focused website with integrated EMR along with interactive Patient Corner, they begin correlating physician's expertise with the degree of office automation and Internet accessibility. It's time to replace the cost-driven metric with a revenue-based metric, which measures billing revenue per physician and refocuses the management from savings to profits. Perhaps the greatest impact of technology is still ahead of us, in the area of patient relationship management and profitable practice development.

References

American Heart Association, "Survey Results: Online Education Program Is Effective Source Of Information For Heart Patients," MediLexicon, May 12, 2007

Joseph A Diaz, et al, "BRIEF REPORT: What Types of Internet Guidance Do Patients Want from Their Physicians?," J Gen Intern Med. 2005 August; 20(8): 683-685.

David Kesmodel, "As Angry Patients Vent Online, Doctors Sue to Silence Them," The Wall Street Journal Online, September 14, 2005

Elaine Zablocki, "Communication: If You Build It ...How a top-notch Web site can help expand and enhance your services," Physicians Practice, May 2007

Yuval Lirov, PhD, author of "Practicing Profitability - Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinic and Chiropractic Office: Scheduling, SOAP Notes, Care Plans, Coding, Billing, Collections, and Audit Risk" (Affinity Billing) and "Mission Critical Systems Management" (Prentice Hall), inventor of patents in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Security, and CEO of Vericle.net - Distributed Billing and Practice Management Technologies. Yuval invites you to register to the next webinar on audit risk at BillingPrecision.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Yuval_Lirov/35366

Where is Your Health Information? Not Knowing Could Kill You!

By Wendy Blair  |   Submitted On April 19, 2009 

Do you have a family doctor? How long have you been his/her patient? Do even they have a complete and comprehensive picture of your medical history going all the way back to birth? Not many do these days. Family doctors are hard to find and the result is that there isn't really anyone at the helm of your healthcare. There isn't that consistency that existed in the days of housecalls.

Of course, the day of the housecall has long since seen sunset, but if you're not under the care of a G.P. (general practitioner), then who is making sure you get your annual physical? Who is plotting and planning to get those middle age tests looked after? And, who has ALL of your medical records.

These days, we are all in a hurry and in a society of global mobility, our records are being scattered hither and yon! The walk-in clinic you visited last week has a record of your prescription for that nasty chest cough. And the emergency room that you took your son to after that little soccer incident has the x-ray of his sprained ankle. But does anyone, anywhere have a record of everything ... every treatment that has been undertaken ... every medication ...

In all, one million adults and 130,000 children in Ontario alone don't have a family doctor. The OMA says the province needs 1,000 general practitioners now. (Hamilton Spectator Nov. 26, 2007) (This number grows exponentially when you look across North America ... to a whopping 9.8 million!! - US Govt. Committee on Healthcare, Statistics -June, 2007). Government has, over the past few years, introduced a number of programs to provide more medical care especially to rural settings, but is it enough?

There's too much room for error with numbers like this staring healthcare in the face ... medical error that is! And medical errors cost money and lives!! People's lives are permanently changed or even ended unnecessarily every day across North America due to the lack of essential information needed for doctors to make informed decisions about our care. The time for change is NOW!

But who needs to make the change exactly? Governments across North America and worldwide are recognizing the need and making funds available to improve communication capabilities in the medical industry. Medical practitionners have long-since noted a gap in the flow of information between facilities, private practices and healthcare providers of all sorts. All of these groups are thoughtfully and positively working toward change, but I would suggest that it is not their sole responsibility.

In fact, I would argue that responsibility is just as much that of the individual as it is their doctors' and governments'.

So today's order of business ... where is your personal health information right now ... right this minute? Do you have it neatly organized and typed on your computer or does only your doctor or medical practitioner know for sure? Maybe there's a trail of prescriptions dating back to 1985 somewhere in your medicine cabinet?

Here's the rub folks ... you never know when you might need to know about yours or your family's medical information! What if you're on vacation thousands of miles from your doctor's office or what if they're just not available at the time? You just never know when your health information will be needed to help you or someone you love in a crisis?

Medical information technology is forefront in the new US administration's mandate and your information is in their sights. Canada is working hard to implement a system for health communication as well. But their systems are still years away. What are you going to do in the meantime?

It's up to you to take control! Do it! You have both the right and the responsibility to make sure that your health information is accurate, complete and current.

Bottom line ... something is always better than nothing. Even if you just take a few minutes to write down life threatening conditions, a little of your medical history and what medications you take regularly, it's better than leaving things to chance. Emergency contact information is also important in any personal health record so that healthcare providers can get in touch with someone who knows and cares about you. Keep your notes in your wallet and give a copy to someone who cares about you.

Better yet, make it as comprehensive as you possibly can. The more information you can provide, the less likely it is that an unnecessary medical mistake will affect your life!

It's time for all of us to take responsibility for our own information in every area of our lives. How else can we really be sure the world has an accurate picture of who we really are?

Wendy Blair, a long time business administrator and youth/community development advocate is now serving as President of EMERG-e-Solve Inc. Parenting a Type 1 Diabetic and caring for elderly parents led her to develop a comprehensive user-friendly software called the LIFECompass Personal Health Record. For more information on the LIFECompass PHR and related topics, visit her blog at [http://www.lifecompassphr.info] or email blairwen@rogers.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Wendy_Blair/315615