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Healthcare execs say telehealth is their No. 1 pandemic tech problem

By Kat Jercich for Healthcare IT News A new report from research firm KLAS found that nearly half of the 19 healthcare executives surveyed say that either telehealth functionality or capacity has been their primary problem to solve during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis. Other major challenges include remote patient monitoring, interoperability, real-time…

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ICD-10 codes don’t accurately capture COVID-19 symptoms, study shows

Kat Jercich for Healthcare IT News A study published this past week in JAMA Network Open suggests symptom-specific ICD-10 codes don’t always capture COVID-19-related symptoms. An electronic health record review of 2,201 patients who had been tested for COVID-19 found that ICD-10 codes had low sensitivity and negative predictive value for capturing cough, fever and…

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Wide nurse staffing variation across hospitals poses a threat to the public’s health

By Jeff Lagasse for Healthcare Finance Many hospitals in New York and Illinois were understaffed right before the first surge of critically ill COVID-19 patients, while New York City — an international gateway to the U.S. with three major international airports, and the early epicenter of the coronavirus surge in the U.S. — had the…

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Healthcare gains jobs in July, but still down 800K from February

By Hailey Mensik for Healthcare Dive Dive Brief: Healthcare added 126,000 jobs in July with notable gains for dentists (+45,000), hospitals (+27,000) and physicians’ offices (+26,000). That’s slower than June’s growth of 358,000 healthcare jobs, and the industry is still about 800,000 jobs short from February’s levels. Nursing home job losses deepened with 28,000 more in July…

Read MoreHealthcare gains jobs in July, but still down 800K from February

Contributor: Agility Required to Keep Pace With Code Changes During Pandemic

By Andria Jacobs, RN, MS, CEN, CPHQ for AJMC Andria Jacobs, RN, MS, CEN, CPHQ, chief operating officer for PCG Software, discusses 3 billing and claims issues facing the health care industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rightfully so, the coronavirus pandemic has shone the spotlight on front-line medical professionals who continue to…

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Code changes coming for evaluation and management visits: 4 things to know

Morgan Haefner for Becker’s Hospital Review In its proposed Physician Fee Schedule for 2021, CMS outlined changes to how office and outpatient evaluation and management visits will be coded. Four things to know: 1. CMS proposed a refinement to clarify the times when prolonged office and outpatient E/M visits can be reported. The department proposed revaluing…

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Healthcare data breach cost up to $7M per incident

Jackie Drees by Becker’s Hospital Review Hospitals and clinics continued to rack up the highest average data breach costs in 2020 at $7.13 million, up 10 percent since last year, according to IBM Security’s July 29 report. For the IBM Security-sponsored 2020 Cost of a Data Breach report, the Ponemon Institute conducted interviews with more than…

Read MoreHealthcare data breach cost up to $7M per incident

11 CPT codes take effect for ASCs

By Angie Stewart for Becker’s Hospital Review CMS published 11 Current Procedural Terminology Category III codes that took effect July 1 in the ASC payment system. The agency also made updated payment rates available for download. The new codes: 0594T. Humerus osteotomy with insertion of an externally controlled intramedullary lengthening device, including intraoperative imaging, initial and subsequent alignment assessments,…

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Guest post: Most common COVID-19 respiratory manifestations

By Alba Kuqi, MD, CICA, CCS, CDIP, CCDS, CRCR, CSMC for ACDIS CDI Blog In their review of the medical record, CDI professionals aim to reconstruct the patient story from admission to discharge by examining, understanding, and synthesizing many puzzle pieces from disparate systems and people. Many patients coming in with COVID-19 related pneumonia are demonstrating…

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