Home Forums Discussions Problems CHITT for dummies

OK, I have read all over the board from providers and others much smarter than I about the CHITT certification and its backdoor portal. I can find information on CHITT but not on the portal allowing the insurance companies to obtain patient data.

Can someone steer me in the right direction with some links to sites and articles that talk about that? Thanks.

Vinny and Bert,
I just was talking to some folks yesterday from our state vaccine regisitry and they were saying that any day now in 2008, New Year? that we either need to allow up loads of our vaccine records to them or we are going to be required to manually enter our patients stuff to their server, site. Vinny what do you know about any of this??? I've been trying to simply ignore these a-holes, but I guess I may not be able to much longer.

I was at a Small Business thing here in Syracuse called SOHO. I kid you not that I was talking to and looking for options for getting Nancy and I out of this stupid industry completely. I've got one or two ideas to design and manufacture a few hockey products, as well as some sort of an off-road store and or install type place. I am so disappointed and so disillusioned as to what is happening in this business and how all of you providers are being treated, I'm just about at my wits end. This is just so stupid and unfair.

Nancy is talking about trying to get out of almost all insurances except for Traditional Medicare and one or two SCHIPS based ones in our area. But even that leaves you still under these people's ever increasing spying and unfunded mandates and demands. People will pay for Fido and Wiskers with the Visa card at the ready without any hesistation, but pay a PCP for his or her expertise....

Ya know it's bad when you start talking to the cosmetics ladies so you can try and sell body wash and skin creams to the folks who come thru your office. Nancy really wants to try and sell books, suppliments and the like. How sad is that when a board certified, licensed physician has to try and suppliment her income by being an "Avon Lady"??? Un- F'ing real.

As to your question Bert, Roy is the first person to flag this so I would hope he can point us to the actual chapter and verse. Roy are you listening???

BERT,
From the Horse's mouth.

CCHIT : Certification Commission for Healthcare Information TechnologySeveral progressive liability carriers are granting premium credits to practices using CCHIT Certified electronic health records. ...

www.cchit.org

TEPR: CCHIT Meeting Draws Ire from Vendors,
Ideas from Leaders ...A “town hall” meeting of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology at the annual Towards the Electronic Patient Record conference ...

www.health-itworld.com/newsitems/2006/may/05-25-06-tepr

Blood not boiling yet? Try this!
Modern Healthcare Online And in an ironic twist, one EHR company executive said the call for auditing access doesn’t go far enough, that the electronic peepholes insurance companies ...
www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/FREE/308230001/0/FRONTPAGE

Well, all is not lost. How's this for turnabout?

"electronic peepholes insurance companies want installed in physician EHR systems should be placed in the payers' IT systems as well.

"Today, payers tend to minimize their payout, and if that is the case, can we have access to their systems and see how they do it?" said Chittaranjan Mallipeddi, chief executive officer of MedPlexus, in Sunnyvale, Calif., a developer of a suite of EHR and practice-management software systems. "For fair play, I think physicians should ask to have access (to payers' systems). The payers should be open to that."

Wayne,
For all practical purposes, all is lost. Once the cat (electronic peephole) is out of the bag, we're not going to get the cat back in the bag unless that cat is runover by a truck (nine times). It'll be pretty messy to get that cat in the bag.

I'm with Roy. These things always seem to have a stacked deck. How many rules are there against them, verses how many rules are against us? We can't talk and share data and info but they can? So you are really in a "free-trade" level and open negotiating session with these guys. They know what ever other doc charges and gets when they sit down with us, so why are we not entitled to that same data? I am a member of organized labor and I know "bargaining in good faith" when I see it. And this is certainly NOT it.

And there is still the matter of the civil liberties here. Requests for records are on a case by case, need to know kind of basis. They are NOT supposed to be able to have free access to all patient records without any good reason. GO FISH! In a real sense this just over turns tons of state and federal law. There are many reasons here in our state that allow us to not comply with record requests and frequently we don't on any one of a number of these grounds. Some self appointed, full of grandure board and committee is just going to come along and thrown pages of state and federal law right out the window. Come on, you're smarter than all that.

No way. This is the line in the sand. No further, not anymore. Do any of you have enough balls to go to jail to protect your patients rights, much as a good journalist might to protect their sources? That day is almost here. Might as well start the gut check now. Time to look deep inside and really ask yourself; "Just what do you believe in?"

Good Night and Good Luck
Paul

Roy, I just thought it was a funny (and true, but unlikely) comment that was made in the article.

No, I'd just shoot the cat and go back to paper. If they won't pay me without an EMR, I know that some of my patients will pay me just to get the high-quality care they get from me - and hopefully there will be enough of them to be able to pay the bills.

Look out, CDPHP.. I have a loaded firewall here and I'm not afraid to use it!!!!

V.

Yep, I sure am.. for that or for the right to bargain with our payers and to enjoy the same freedoms that members of any other profession share when it comes to running their businesses. Drag me off - be it for standing up for patient rights, doctors' rights, or "anti-trust violations" against a huge monopoly. Just be sure when they drag me off that it's covered LIVE by all of the major networks, and commented on by Glenn Beck on CNN.

Another member of the roused rabble,

Vinny

The first step as I see it is to simply refuse to comply with current requests for information. When an insurance company sends me a form asking when the patient last had a HgBA1C and what the result was I tell them it is none of their business. I also tell my patients to hang up on their insurance company when a "Nurse" calls them to discuss their health care and tries to make recommendations to them. When an employer askes for detailed medical information, I also tell them it is none of their business. My "Work Excuses" say nothing more than "The patient was seen in the office today for an illness". I don't copy and send insurance companies any patient encounter notes. If they want to audit a chart, they have to send out a representative who must review the chart in my office, in my presence and they can make no copies unless the patient has given me expressed written permission for the to do so. I make it as hard on the insurance companies as possible and I always discuss this invasion of their medical provacy with the patient. If CHITT does take hold, I will not comply. If legislation makes it illegal for me not to comply, I am outta here. We have got to get the patients outraged about this invasion of their privacy or we might as well stamp ED, BPH, VD, HIV, FI (fecal incontinence) on their foreheads!!

Leslie

You go girl!!! That's the spirit. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!!!" (Howard Beal)