Online Medical Coding Encyclopedia to Launch

Described as the largest collaborative online medical coding encyclopedia, Codapedia is set to launch in April.

Similar to Wikipedia, Codapedia will provide free, user-generated content related to medical billing, medical coding, collections, and compliance for medical practices.  Expert articles, interactive forums and links to definitive citations are among the many features this new web site has to offer the medical coding industry.

The online community is actively seeking “codapedists” to help ensure the growth and accuracy of medical coding information.

Click here to read the official press release: Codapedia Announced, Wiki for Coding and Medical Reimbursement.

Government Provides Online Resources for Entrepreneurs

According to an article on BusinessWeek.com, a new outreach effort is now available to small business owners on the Business.gov Web site. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Business Gateway Program started a community forum built specifically for small business owners.

The forum includes blogs, articles, and discussions, and it’s designed for small business owners and government employees to have an area for interaction.

The idea to create this site for buiness owners first originated in 2006, but after President Barack Obama took office, the entrepreneur community forum’s plans accelerated rapidly.

Click here to read the entire article Government Resources for Entrepreneurs.

NYC Council Speaker Aims to Improve Nurse Shortage

Although she alluded to it about a month ago during her State of the City Address, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn formally announced a five-year partnership with CUNY to increase the university’s teaching capacity to train an additional 100 nursing students a year.

New York is hit just as hard with the national nurse shortage, turning down 575 nurse applicants last year due to a lack of nursing teachers.

Quinn’s initiative would permit CUNY to pull five to ten seasoned nurses from New York City’s hospitals and have them teach as guest faculty members. Quinn’s solution would result in the training of 100 new nurses a year.

Click here to read more about Quinn’s nurse shortage plans.

Half of Nation’s Hospitals Operating in the Red

It wasn’t very long ago when PRN Funding wrote a 3-part series on the healthcare cash flow crisis in America, giving a glimpse into the actual costs of America’s healthcare system. Written at the end of 2004,we shared a startling statistic in the three-part Cash Poor Series, 1/3 of the nation’s hospitals were operating in the red. Just 4 years later, 50% of America’s hospitals are currently operating in the red, and many are in the midst of cutting back on services and staffing.

According to an article that appeared in today’s Los Angeles Times, “Forty-four percent of hospitals have seen declines in surgeries, with hip procedures showing the steepest drop-off at 45%, according to another new survey. As a result, 47% of the hospitals surveyed expect to make staff cuts, and 69% plan to cancel or delay equipment purchases, according to the survey by Novation, a company that manages supplier contracts for hospitals.

Novation has responded by demanding that vendors maintain or roll back prices on the goods they sell to hospitals.”

Click here to read the entire article: Half of nation’s hospitals running losses.

Realities of Outsourcing Medical Transcription

Senior VP and managing partner of Outsourcing Solutions Inc., Tony Incardona,  recently wrote an article for ADVANCE for Health Information Professionals, entitled, Outsourcing: The Realities of Reorganization.

In his article, Mr. Incardona discussed some of the pros and cons of medical transcription outsourcing, saying: “The decision to outsource transcription should not be limited to cost-savings alone. Transcription volume, staff on-hand and your facility’s needs all play vital roles in the process.”

Click here to read the entire article on ADVANCE’s web site: Outsourcing: The Realities of Reorganization.

Factoring for Home Care Agencies

The factoring experts at PRN Funding, LLC announced this week that it is now accepting factoring applications from home care agencies. For the convenience of the factoring blog‘s readers, we have included the text from the official press release below:

PRN Funding Expands Funding to Home Care Agencies

Cleveland, OH-Keeping up with the ever-changing medical staffing marketplace, PRN Funding, LLC made a formal announcement this week that it is now accepting home care factoring applications.

Previously, the focused accounts receivable factoring firm has worked exclusively with healthcare vendors that sell goods or deliver services directly to medical facilities. By adding home care agencies to their repertoire, the invoice funding firm is now able to collect payments directly from multiple state governments and their agencies.

“It has come to our attention that home care agencies and private duty firms could benefit greatly by PRN Funding’s factoring services,” said PRN Funding’s president, Philip Cohen. “It’s a growing market that we are excited to help.”

Home care, private duty and in-home care are all phrases that refer to a specialized care or life assistance care given to a person within the confines of his/her home rather than in a medical facility.

With years of experience in healthcare services financing, PRN Funding has a precise understanding of the unique challenges within the demanding business of serving vendors to healthcare institutions. PRN Funding offers financial resources to these companies by purchasing their accounts receivable–a process known as ‘factoring,’  which provides the cash needed to sustain and grow a healthcare business.

For more information, please visit PRN Funding’s Home Care Factoring page.

MTSOs Get a Bad Rap

The medical transcription factoring specialists at PRN Funding were curious if our medical transcription blog readers saw the featured article on ADVANCE for Health Information Professional’s web site: The Dark Side of Medical Transcription.

If you haven’t read it already, it’s definitely an article you should read, as it affects everyone in the medical transcription industry.  For the convenience of our medical transcription readers, PRN Funding has included the article’s highlights below:

The article opens with one medical transcriptionist’s story on how she went to work for what she thought was a reputable medical transcription service organization (MTSO) that started breaking promises in the very beginning, failing to issue direct deposits, never covering its MTs with health insurance, forbidding its MTs from contacting one another, displaying discrepancies in line counts, and finally bouncing a slew of payroll checks.

Another medical transcriptionist shared her story of the dangers of going into business with someone whom you do not know very well, which inevitably led to the closing of her medical transcription service. She was contacted years later by the IRS because the business owed a slew of back taxes, and her business partner was no where to be found.

The last bit of the article came more in the form of advice from an experienced MT. She shared a handful  of medical transcription industry tips with ADVANCE, from detailing what makes a good transcriptionist to taking the time to research medical transcription schools and then exceling in your program. She even discussed some of the benefits of continuing your medical transcription education even after graduation.

Click here to read the entire article: The Dark Side of Medical Transcription.

Temp Healthcare Workers Lack Adequate Background Checks

An interesting article appeared in the LA Times last week in which Los Angeles County officials were quoted saying “they do not know how many of the 2,000 temporary workers serving patients at county hospitals and clinics each month are working without a criminal background check.”

The LA County officials suspended the contract of one of its largest allied health staffing providers, Mediscan, because the agency placed a convicted rapist at Roybal Comprehensive Health Center, a large health clinic in east Los Angeles.

A representative from Mediscan was quoted in the article saying that all of the proper background checks had been carried out, going back seven years without a problem.

Click here to read the entire article in the LA Times: LA County Unaware How Many Temporary Healthcare Workers Lack Background Checks.

Why a Recession is a Great Time to Start a Nurse Entrepreneur Business

LeaRae Keyes, an RN and founder of the Nurse Entrepreneur Network, wrote an interesting article on her web site about the benefits of starting a nurse entrepreneur-related business during a recession. Within her article, she cited 7 reasons why a recession is a good time to start a nursing-related business, and we’ve included them here for our Factoring Blog readers:

  1. Companies are more likely to be looking for lower cost alternatives to their current providers.
  2. Business supplies are often discounted so it doesn’t cost as much to start a business.
  3. Companies do more outsourcing to decrease their bottom line which will benefit you if you can fill the gap.
  4. The marketplace is less crowded and this means less competition. It is like taking a vacation during the off season.
  5. Money is not lost in a recession. Wealth is transferred. Follow the money. Sell to those that have the money.
  6. People spend more time at home. Grab their attention by using 2.0 technologies.
  7. People working longer hours to hang onto their jobs are willing to pay for services because they have less leisure time.

And if you’re worried about securing financing in this bad economy, you don’t have to. Teaming up with a nurse staffing factoring firm, such as PRN Funding, provides nurse entrepreneurs immediate cash to meet payroll and pay taxes, without having to muddy the company’s balance sheet.

Click here to read LeaRae Keyes’ entire article: Why is a recession a great time to start a nurse entrepreneur business?

Older Posts
Newer Posts