CMS reported on March 11, 2014, that enrollments in the national health insurance exchanges (HIEs) have reached 4.2 million individuals, with 20 days until the enrollment deadline. While this number is not close to the originally targeted 6 million enrollees, the administration is touting this as a successful achievement. The CMS numbers have already been analyzed and interpreted from many different angles. 

Coalition Urges Administration to Follow Congress’ Lead by Adopting Appropriate Use CriteriaWashington, D.C. – The Access to Medical Imaging Coalition (AMIC) today expressed concern that President Obama’s 2015 budget would harm patient access to advanced medical imaging technologies by implementing prior authorization requirements through radiology benefit managers (RBMs).

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the Obama administration plans to make an announcement as early as next week to continue to let insurers sell policies that don’t comply with the new federal health law for at least 12 more months. This would be the second such delay, and some believe the effort is being made to avert another wave of policy cancelations and negative press for the administration. 

Stamford, Conn., February 21, 2014 (Booth #4074) – FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A., Inc., will be showing several new technologies at the 2014 annual meeting of the Healthcare Informatics Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference and exhibit in Orlando, FL from February 23-27, 2014. Recognized globally as a premier conference in healthcare, HIMSS brings the industry’s brightest and most dynamic thought–leaders together to share ideas on the latest innovations in healthcare.

Stamford, Conn., February 21, 2014 (Booth #4074) – FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A., Inc., will unveil a patient-centric vendor neutral archive (VNA) for healthcare professionals at the 2014 annual meeting of the Healthcare Informatics Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference and exhibit in Orlando, FL from February 23-27, 2014. Synapse VNA technology will catalog and maintain the data in a patient centric model allowing a single access point for EMRs and other systems.

ICIS delivers new image acquisition workflow engine, enhanced ILM capabilities, embedded image exchange, patented hybrid-video display, and moreICIS helps healthcare providers capture, manage, and exchange from existing departmental solutions into the EHR or HIE - ICIS VNA features a new workflow engine and updated universal viewer that indexes medical images so they appear, in context, in the EHR or HIE as part of the medical record - Support of non-DICOM and DICOM data formats facilitates storage and access of medical imaging information, multimedia information, and paper documents in one comprehensive platform 

According to an article published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), payors are clamoring to get the data on the four million people who federal regulators say have signed up so far for coverage in the health insurance exchanges (HIEs). Despite the prediction that a majority of the new patient population will be young and relatively healthy, payors suspect that details released so far aren’t enough to determine a full risk evaluation. New enrollees don’t have to disclose pre-existing conditions under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), and this may skew the risk assessment for payors. The young people who sign up may be those more likely to have serious medical needs, insurance-industry officials say. 

(February 21, 2014 – Toronto, Ontario, Canada) RamSoft, a leader in RIS, PACS and Teleradiology solutions, has partnered with Alpha Biomedical in Gurabo, Puerto Rico to distribute its complete line of fully customizable radiology workflow solution to their local market. RamSoft partners with organizations such as Alpha Biomedical and Diagnostic to provide sales and service support at the local level.