Category: news

One of the nation’s largest health care information networks offers providers comprehensive ICD-10 training
Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Apr 9, 2014 — Availity, one of the nation’s largest health care information networks, has partnered with Precyse/HealthStream to offer its clients a powerful and unique ICD-10 education program for the physician office/ambulatory market. Precyse and HealthStream have teamed together to offer a unique and comprehensive ICD-10 education solution that is delivered exclusively through HealthStream’s workforce development platform. Availity’s physician office/ambulatory facility customers will join the more than 1.2 million learners already using the Precyse University ICD-10 solution powered by HealthStream’s workforce development platform, which includes:
• A single solution for all ICD-10 education needs within a practice or clinic;
• Diversified education providing each impacted population with the specific tools and trainingneeded to be successful in ICD-10;
• Myriad of advanced courseware, applications and tools to make education more practical,accessible and relevant to physicians’ concerns, needs and time constraints; and
• Exclusive access to Precyse University’s expansive, one-of-a-kind ICD-10 education program.
“Now more than ever, it is critical to stay vigilant and continue to focus on training and developing coders, CDI specialists and others who will use the data and convert it into meaningful information,” said Jeff Chester, senior vice president and chief revenue for Availity. “We see Precyse University as a way to ease the training burden on our providers and shorten the learning curve as they move from ICD-9 to ICD-10,” said Chester.
Precyse and HealthStream have partnered to offer a one-stop solution for all of the ICD-10 education needs within physician practices, clinics, and other ambulatory settings. With Precyse’s innovative ICD-10 education programs and HealthStream’s market leading platform for workforce development, healthcare providers have made the ICD-10 solution from Precyse and HealthStream the healthcare industry’s top choice.
“The Precyse University ICD-10 Physician Office Solution is built to fully prepare physicians and all members of their offices and/or clinics for ICD-10,” explains Chris Powell, president of Precyse. “In this challenging time, it is critical to stay vigilant and continue to focus on training and developing physicians and others who will use the data and convert it into meaningful information.”
Unlike its competitors, the Precyse University solution is fully built and tested with more than 200 courses, applications and tools specifically for physicians’ needs. In addition, most courses are mobile-ready for use on a computer, iPad® or mobile device to make education available anywhere and at any time. Innovative tools and resources such as video games, labs, simulators and animations are available as well.

Dr. Donald Bialek to lend valuable insights to leading HIM services and technology company
Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Apr 7, 2014 — Precyse, an industry leader in Health Information Management (HIM) Performance Management and Technology, has announced that Donald Bialek, MD, has joined the Precyse Advisory Council (PAC). Dr. Bialek brings extensive expertise in clinical medicine, senior operating and management roles in many organizations, as well as deep consulting experience. With his industry knowledge and over 25 years of experience, Dr. Bialek is poised to advise Precyse as it works to simplify its clients’ everyday challenges by providing holistic services and technologies that transform clinical data directly into actionable information.
The PAC functions as a source of high-level input and advice on the strategic positioning and expansion of Precyse’s service and technology offerings. The PAC, with its extensive industry experience and network, helps Precyse engage its clients and new opportunities in solving their ever increasingly complex business challenges
“We are excited to welcome Don to our Advisory Council,” said Precyse Board Member Alan Weinstein, who is Chairman of the PAC. “As a seasoned expert in the healthcare field, he has been instrumental in bringing clinical and operational perspective to his work in quality, physician engagement, clinical operations and informatics. We look forward to the valuable insights and perspectives he will bring to Precyse that will enhance peer-to-peer communication and clinical documentation”
Dr. Bialek received his clinical training in pediatrics and anesthesia in the Harvard programs at Boston Children’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. Later in his career, Dr. Bialek returned to Harvard and added a specialty in medical informatics as a graduate student and Fellow in the combined Harvard-MIT Medical Informatics program. After graduating from this program, he taught at Harvard and worked within its medical institutions as an applied medical informatician.
Dr. Bialek continued his consulting career working as a subject matter expert in the Global Health Solutions practice at CSC, Managing Director at Huron Consulting Group, senior executive physician consultant at Dearborn Advisors, and a Partner at PCD Partners, before being named to his current role as Chief Medical Officer for Galloway Consulting.

Precyse advises clients to use this time to focus on CDI, training and process improvement
Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Apr 1, 2014 — Yesterday, Congress passed the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) Bill that extends the proposed physician rate reduction for one year, but which also includes language that delays the compliance deadline for converting to the ICD-10 system of diagnostic and procedural coding from October 1, 2014, to not before October 1, 2015. President Obama is expected to sign the bill today.
“Like everyone in the industry, Precyse has been closely watching the developments related to the SGR Bill and its effect on the transition to ICD-10. We are disappointed with the vote as our clients have spent considerable time and resources ensuring preparedness for October 1, 2014” said Chris Powell, president of Precyse. “However, this change to the legislation cannot deter us from our goals to improve the overall level of clinical documentation that will in turn improve the quality of the data that will drive the delivery of the best health care in the world.” Consistent with our advice the last time we experienced a delay in ICD-10 implementation, we believe there is still no time to procrastinate. Providers should use this delay to continue staff education efforts, improve their clinical documentation processes and build a strong foundation for process improvement and downstream strategic initiatives embarked upon under the Affordable Care Act.
ICD-10 will provide clinical and financial benefits to help us drive better clarity about the care that is being delivered. It is critical to stay vigilant and continue to focus on training and developing coders, CDI specialists and others who will use the data and convert it into meaningful information. ICD-10 is a measure of quality. Hospitals and physicians aspire to offer world-class care. Precyse will do our part by accurately capturing, organizing and tagging the clinical data that leads to that outcome. Precyse has not stopped preparing for the implementation of the new coding rules and stands ready to support and meet the needs of our nearly 5,000 clients, many of whom already rely on our management, staffing and technology solutions, through our training and implementation process. Because Precyse not only supports, but also operates entire HIM and coding departments for some of our clients, we recommend three key areas of focus throughout the next 18 months.
Documentation
Providers should increase clinical documentation training programs for physicians and other caregivers. This includes developing processes, guidance and support for improved clinical documentation under ICD-9 to be better prepared for ICD-10. Improved documentation skills – even minor changes such as more specificity in notes – create obvious financial and non-financial rewards: fewer claims denials, reduced audit exposure, improved case mix index and improved cash flows. Most importantly, patient care is improved when downstream clinicians can review and rely upon more complete chart notes, and better data is available for analytics and comparative studies. It is essential to target high-volume specialties within each organization most impacted by ICD-10 and train these specialists in proper documentation while training the coding team on the new coding system, then move to the next specialty for training.
Build a Strong Foundation for Process Improvement
Providers should assess the flow of information across its organization and develop a plan to address gaps through process improvement and technology. Invest in automated systems that streamline the entire clinical documentation process. ICD-10 will not be just about retraining medical coders – it is about having better data about patients and their treatments, affording vast opportunities for improvement in data capture and processing. This leads to a more complete and useful set of codes, which is crucial in a fully automated electronic medical record environment. Today, inefficient, labor-intensive workflows abound, whether involving clinical information inputs such as dictation and transcription; approvals, coding, physician queries and other myriad facets involved in billing for services; or abstracting and analyzing quality indicators to improve patient care. We also recognize the promise of new innovations such as automated speech recognition, Computer Assisted Coding using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and clinical decision support tools – but know that realizing their full promise tomorrow requires that we improve how current users interact with and use their systems today. As a member of the healthcare information management/information technology community, we must use our skills to innovate for clinicians. We must develop workflow platforms and applications that allow healthcare providers to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. We do not want to add more time and complexity to an already challenging process.
Training and Development
Continue to invest in the training of coders, auditors and those who will use the data. Improve the basic skills of your coders and auditors in ICD-9 areas that will also be required in ICD-10. The transition to ICD-10 has pushed healthcare to appropriately invest in training our coders as skilled knowledge workers. As part of our own ICD-10 preparations, Precyse assessed the coding skills of the hundreds of coders and auditors on our staff to evaluate their ICD-10 readiness. Precyse invested in and developed a comprehensive and multifaceted online training program called Precyse University, while developing individual training plans for every coder. This investment has paid off for Precyse clients handsomely, yielding a better case mix index for hospitals, improving coding compliance audit results, increasing coder retention and attracting new coder recruits who are eager to develop and perfect their skills. We recommend that you perform side-by-side dual coding in ICD-9 and ICD-10, assessing the documentation and coding gaps, and target training based on these findings.
At Precyse, our vision is a world in which meaningful information is available, whenever and wherever needed, and helps save time, money and lives. We are an innovation company that listens carefully to our clients and prospects; every day we challenge ourselves to come back to these clients with solutions that ensure a healthy organization to promote a healthy population. We pledge to our clients and prospects that we will never stop innovating in the midst of very challenging times.

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Mar 26, 2014 — Precyse University, the most innovative, complete and widely adopted on-site, online and mobile ICD-10 education solution, available exclusively through HealthStream, today announced a partnership with athenahealth, Inc. as part of athenahealth’s More Disruption Please (MDP) program. Together, the companies will work to link athenahealth’s growing network of more than 50,000 health care providers with the capabilities of Precyse University so they can more efficiently prepare their staffs for the transition to ICD-10 in October 2014. The Precyse/HealthStream solution for ICD-10 education is now used by approximately 1.2 million learners in health care organizations.
“Precyse University delivers a powerful tool for physician practices,” said Thomas Ormondroyd, Vice President and General Manager of Precyse Learning Solutions. “Although ICD-10 seems daunting and burdensome, it actually offers tremendous opportunity to optimize reimbursement, minimize denials and appeals and improve clinical care through more valuable and detailed data. Our solutions are designed to ease the change to ICD-10 and have physicians and their staffs ready for its arrival.”
athenahealth is a cloud-based services company on a mission to build an information backbone to help make health care work as it should. Through the MDP program, athenahealth is accelerating the introduction of high-value innovation via the cloud, providing new services to help providers thrive in the face of industry change and pressure. MDP partners with innovators, entrepreneurs, companies, investors, and individuals—those who are passionate about overthrowing established approaches in health care that simply aren’t working, aren’t good enough, or aren’t advancing the industry. Unlike other health care startup incubators, MDP invites qualified companies like Precyse to gain access to the more than 50,000 providers that are already plugged into athenahealth’s cloud-based network.