Ohio Hospitals Feel Financial Pinch

A couple of days ago, PRN Funding blogged about the effects of the economy on America’s hospitals. Not surprisingly, the economy is affecting the health care systems and hospitals local to home–Right here, in Cleveland, OH, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth Medical Center and the Sisters of Charity Health System are all facing tough financial decisions.

According to an article on Cleveland.com, the Cleveland Clinic “cut spending on construction, travel and consultants. It also instituted a hiring and pay freeze late last year,” while University Hospitals continues to monitor the economy and keep the possibility of future layoffs on the table.

Meanwhile, MetroHealth Medical Center and Sisters of Charity Health System are annoucning job cuts. The Ohio Hospital Association reported that 1/3 of Ohio’s hospitals plan layoffs in the next six months.

Some blame the region’s unemployment, which was 9.3% in February, as the biggest challenge to the state’s hospitals. “Fewer people are opting for elective procedures as household budgets tighten. And rising unemployment means fewer people who are insured and able to pay their health bills,” the article said.

Click here to read the entire article: Cleveland Hospitals Feel Financial Pinch.

Slow Payments Push Public Hospitals Towards Bankruptcy

Health care restructuring experts predict that the economic downfall “will force more municipalities to make the tough political call of shedding financially draining public hospitals, possibly through a bankruptcy filing,” according to a Wall Street Journal article that was published last week.

A big part of the problem is state Medicaid programs. The majority of public hospitals’ patients are insured by Medicaid, which has a strong track record of paying slowly. Adding to the slow-paying problem, the current economic downturn has been making it even more difficult for payments to be delivered in a timely manner.

So municipalities are left with a difficult decision: Continue covering their hospitals’ losses in addition to dealing with their other debts, or  shut down the hospital so that residents lose out on health care and the hospital employees lose their jobs.

Click here to read the entire article: Downturn May Send Public Hospitals into Bankruptcy.

Healthcare Sector Job Growth Slows

The economy continues to hinder the job market, and the hospital and healthcare sectors are being hit significantly by the slow economy.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shared some shocking numbers this week:

The hospital sector added 7,300 new jobs in April 2007, and that number increased one year later to 11,300 new jobs. However, in April 2009, the number of new hires dwindled to  a mere 600 new jobs.

The healthcare sectors as w hole, which includes physicians’ offices, residential mental health homes, and blood and organ banks, only added 17,000 new jobs in April 2009, which is way down in comparison to the 30,000 average new hires for the month.

According to an article on HealthLeadersMedia.com, which reported these numbers, “If hospital payroll increases continue at this pace, fewer than 25,000 new jobs will be created in 2009, as compared with 137,100 new hospital jobs in 2008; 105,700 new jobs in 2007.”

It is important to note that even though job growth is slow in the hospital and healthcare sectors, they are still outperforming the overall economy.

Click here to read the entire article: Hospital Job Growth Slows.

AHDI/MTIA EHR Task Force Recruiting for Focus Group

The AHDI/MTIA EHR Task Force has a very real goal to “develop and release an EHR Readiness Toolkit, a resource guide for our sector in preparing for healthcare’s migration to an electronic health information infrastructure,” according to a recent Vitals eNewsletter.

In order to meet this goal, the Task Force wants to form two focus groups of transcriptionists with EMR/EHR integration experience to provide insight, recommendations and feedback to help develop the toolkit.

The Task Force is seeking approximately 8-10 MTs or transcription managers/supervisors who have experience as employees with facility migration to an EMR/EHR are needed for one focus group, and approximately 8-10 MTSOs or independent contractors who have been part of a client’s migration to an EMR/EHR for the second focus group.

Some of the duty’s involved with the focus groups include: complete a comprehensive questionnaire, partake in 1-2 meetings, and review the toolkit prior to its release.

If you are interested and able to participate, contact Tiffany Wagner (twagner@ahdionline.org or 209-341-2461).

Refer a factoring deal to PRN, Get a FREE $25 Starbucks card!

Did you hear?? Starting today, PRN Funding will mail out $25 Starbucks gift cards to the next 20 brokers/cash flow consultants who contact us with a new factoring prospect!

All you have to do is contact me when you have a qualified prospect*, and we’ll do the rest. The best part is, you get the $25 Starbucks gift card even if we DON’T close the deal!

Remember that PRN Funding provides factoring exclusively to vendors who sell to medical facilities. Examples of the industries we factor include:

Healthcare Staffing Agency Factoring
Medical Transcription Factoring
Non-Medicare Home Care Factoring
Medical Coding Factoring
Medical Billing Factoring

Take the first step and email me (nflores@prnfunding.com) your current mailing address so that I know exactly where to send the Starbucks card when you refer a deal.

Thanks!
Nikki Flores

*NOTE: Upon evaluation and approval that the following criteria have been met for a referral, PRN Funding will mail out a $25 Starbucks gift card directly to the referrer:

1. The prospect must be an organized entity (Corporation, LLC). Sole proprietorships, general partnerships and DBA’s do not qualify for this promotion.

2. Broker/cash flow consultant must, at minimum, informally introduce PRN Funding, LLC to the prospect. In other words, PRN Funding will not make any cold calls as part of this promotion.

3. The prospect must have a legitimate need and interest in accounts receivable factoring.

4. PRN Funding must receive a completed application and accounts receivable aging report from the prospect.

2009 MTIA Conference Recap

PRN Funding recently had the opportunity to connect with many MTSOs and medical transcriptionists when we exhibited at the 20th Annual MTIA Conference in Louisville, KY a couple of weeks ago.

Account Manager, Joanna Schafer, represented PRN Funding in booth #26, and she had the opportunity to speak with a number of MTSOs about the benefits of PRN Funding’s medical transcription funding program.

In a recap email, MTIA listed a slew of key issues and priorities discussed at this year’s conference as well, namely:

  1. The 2009 MTIA Conference had 80 first-time attendees.
  2. MTIA membership grew by 10%.
  3. Attendees wholeheartedly supported a uniform visibility campaign comprised of advocacy to key health policymakers and a public relations strategy focused on the sector’s contribution to quality patient care delivery.
  4. MTIA recognized that the recently enacted HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act) and healthcare reform present tremendous opportunities for the clinical documentation sector, as long as the sector is organized and focused.
  5. “Discrete reportable transcription” can be integrated with EHR technology as a method of increasing EHR adoption.
  6. With the number of consumers who are documenting their personal health stories continues to increase and more outcomes driven data coming from the provider community, there are new dynamic business models being created for the clinical documentation sector.
  7. The Health Story Project promotes and enhances the value of narrative text in the age of EHRs by producing and encouraging the adoption of  standards for the flow of information between common types of healthcare documents and EHRs.
  8. The SRT Summit held an active dialogue concerning the impact of SRT on the clinical documentation sector with an ultimate goal of creating a white paper to assist MTSOs with the challenges of purchasing, adopting and implementing SRT.
  9. The QA Summit reviewed essential elements of a quality assessment process and outlined key components and metrics in order to begin producing a widely accepted quality standard protocol that will serve the healthcare community as prudent, efficient, cost-effective, valid, reliable and scalable to ensure quality of all health records.

Fewer Uninsured Patients Seek Hospital Care

Many healthcare industry analysts and investors expected hospital chains to see more uninsured patients in the first quarter as a result of the economic decline and rising unemployment. Surprisingly, however, many hospitals noted a decrease in uninsured patients coming through their doors in the first few months of 2009.

In fact, Franklin-based Community Health Systems, which is the largest publicly-traded hospital chain, posted a 3% drop in uninsured admissions in some of its hospitals. In addition, Tenet Healthcare of Dallas unofficially reported that charity and uninsured admissions fell by more than 4%.

Analysts say that fewer uninsured patients are putting off healthcare, and programs like COBRA and Medicaid are helping pick up the slack, however, they are weary about the after-affects of the uninsured putting off care. It could hypothetically backfire when these patients get sicker and then seek medical care.

Click here to read the entire article: Hospital see fewer uninsured patients.

AAPC iTouch Winner Announced

Last month, PRN Funding announced that it would have a drawing  for a 16-gig iTouch at the 2009 American Academy of Professional Coders Conference in Las Vegas.

Attendees lined up at PRN Funding’s booth each day to learn about the benefits of medical coding factoring and medical billing factoring.

While at the booth, they also had a chance to fill out an entry form for a chance to win the iTouch. On the last day of the show, PRN Funding put all 535 entry forms from medical coding and billing professionals into our fish bowl and chose one.

Congratulations to Jean Pryor of Anderson Medical Billing who was the lucky winner!

Tight on Cash? Pay Your Taxes First

The accounts receivable factoring specialists at PRN Funding, LLC came across an interesting article on TaftLaw.com last week discussing how the economic downturn has left some business owners picking and choosing when and how much to pay their creditors.

The article, Cash Sqeezed? Best to Pay Taxes,  zoned in specifically on a company’s, and in most cases, an individual’s ever-present obligation to pay federal payroll taxes and state and local taxes.

The article specifically said, “The federal tax laws impose personal liability…upon those officers and employees…who have responsibility for filing payroll tax returns (primarily Form 941) and seeing to it that these taxes are paid.” These individuals are called “responsible persons.” In other words, if the IRS determines that payroll taxes have fallen behind, it will place liens on the property of “responsible persons,” garnish their wages and levy on their bank accounts. This same principle holds true in most states when companies fail to remit sales and use taxes to the state government.

Long story short, business owners don’t usually think of themselves as having personal liability for the debts of their business, but federal payroll taxes and sales and use taxes are the exceptions to the rule.

Philippines Gaining Ground in Outsourced Transcription

According to an article in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, “The business of transcribing American medical files employed 34,000 Filipinos and generated $476 million in revenue last year,” and it’s been predicted that the number of medical transcriptionists will triple, and revenue will jump to more than $1.7 billion by the end of next year.

To date, India has held the largest share of outsourced U.S. medical transcription work, but it’s facing growing competition from Philippines, Pakistan and Caribbean countries.

Ernesto Herrara, a former senator who heads the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, mentioned in the article that Filipinos have an important advantage over Indians when it comes to outsourced medical transcription–Because the Philippines is a former American colony, its citizens are more familiar with American accents. He also explained that the country has a “vast pool of jobless medical workers who need little additional training to take dictation from American doctors.”

Not to mention that the fact still remains that it’s more pricey to have things transcribed in the States as opposed to overseas. American medical transcriptionists make $31,250 a year compared to a $6,000 annual salary for a Filipino medical transcriptionist.

Click here to read the entire article: American’ medical files go digital, by way of Asia.

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