Depending on a vote by Congress this week, physicians working in ambulatory surgery centers (ASC) could be on track to receive long-awaited incentive money. H.R. 877, also known as the Electronic Health Fairness Act of 2015, is set to be voted upon on Wednesday. Spearheaded by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn), the bill is designed to included ASC doctors in the EHR incentive payments that other physicians have been eligible to receive. Co-sponsoring the bill along with Black are nine Republicans and five Democrats.

If you’ve been following our blog during the latter half of this year (or any Health IT blog, for that matter), you are already well aware of the fact that the chaos of Meaningful Use Stage 3 (MU3) has been causing panic attacks for many folks in the healthcare industry. If you find yourself breaking out in hives at just the thought of MU3, you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that you are definitely not alone. Many groups are calling for it to be reformed.

This past year has been a landmark year for healthcare IT, government regulations and the growing use of electronic health records within medical practices. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, 2016 could be just as big. At the Bipartisan Policy Center event on interoperability and information sharing in Washington, D.C. earlier this week, National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo detailed her hopes of implementing a nationwide health information exchange for the coming year.

When patients are in search of the right doctor or medical practice for their health needs, where do most go to evaluate their choices? The Internet. Review sites provide important information and feedback from current and/or former patients about specific practices, but the practice's website can also have a significant impact on the prospective patient's impression of that clinic. Therefore, it's vital that specialty practices, especially ones that rely more on elective procedures, have an engaging and impressive website. Here are three tips to help you accomplish just that.

According to data compiled by IBM X-Force Interactive Security Incidents, just shy of 100,000,000 healthcare records have been compromised by data breaches in 2015. And the vast majority of these breaches were experienced by practices operating in the United States. To make matters worse, the healthcare industry continues to be one of the leading sector for data breaches. Healthcare data breaches accounted for 8.4 percent of all cybersecurity incidents in 2015 (according to the IBM data). While a sizable chunk of those who experienced incidents (38.9 percent) chose not to disclose the cause, there was still enough data in the study to identify the top five most frequent cybersecurity threats that resulted healthcare data breaches in 2015.

Every year, Black Book Market Research releases 2015 healthcare industry surveys across multiple specialties, ranking the top electronic health record vendors in each specialty. We’re thrilled to announce that Nextech was ranked as the No. 1 Plastic Surgery EMR vendor in Black Book’s 2015 Plastic Surgery Survey! This newest accolade adds to what has already been a very exciting year for Nextech as we’ve introduced new tools, solutions and improvements since January. Our recognition as the top Plastic Surgery vendor further proves our position as the market leader in Plastic Surgery software.

Tomorrow marks two months since the official implementation of ICD-10 across the country. Much was made about the transition with detractors loudly vocalizing their concerns about the negative consequences ICD-10 would bring on medical practices. But what does the data say? KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms in the United States recently conducted a survey of nearly 300 healthcare IT professionals via a webcast to gauge just how successful or problematic the ICD-10 transition has been.

Last week we held a webinar designed to assist your practice in its Meaningful Use attestation process. Unsurprisingly, many of you had several questions regarding Meaningful Use as we understand that this can be a complicated process. To help make your attestation process easier, we've answered the most frequently asked Meaningful Use questions and have split it up into a four-part series. Our hope is that this can be a resource for your practice moving forward in your Meaningful Use attestation, no matter which stage you're currently at.