3 Key Security Threat Trends Healthcare Organizations Can’t Ignore

Every year, Symantec publishes an Internet Security Threat Report that explores the current state of cybersecurity across industries, including healthcare. This year’s report revealed a few encouraging findings that showed the healthcare industry has improved the way it approaches cybersecurity. Namely, cybersecurity spending has increased across the industry, as has staffing for security, both inside and outside of IT operations. Increased spending for cybersecurity shows a greater commitment and focus from healthcare organizations to get ahead of security threats. This

Tagged Compliance and Security, private cloud

Benefits of an Integrated Network in Payment Processing

Did you know?

30% of dollars in healthcare are wasted – Consumers Union, 2013
In 2014, 35% of providers did not collect patient responsibility at the point of service because they were uncertain about the amount due – Trends in Healthcare Payments Annual Report, 2014
On average, it takes 90 to 120 days to collect patient payments without electronic processes in place – InstaMed Provider Data

Traditionally, the healthcare payments process has been disjointed, involving countless transactions among multiple players across various touch points.

Tagged healthcare payments, healthcare transactions, InstaMed Network, private cloud

How to Keep Your Provider Network Happy

For a healthcare payer’s provider network, the process to get paid has always been a challenge. The steps providers take each day, from verifying eligibility and submitting claims, to receiving and reconciling payments, are filled with manual work, paper, errors and delays. As a result, the fragmented, time-consuming and often stressful process to collect payments is adding a lot of cost pressure on providers.

New healthcare reform mandates also put pressure on providers to find ways to get paid more efficiently.

Tagged Administrative Costs, Affordable Care Act, Best Practice, Eligibility, ERA/EFT, healthcare payments, healthcare reform, increase collections, patient estimation, payer-to-provider payments, payers, payment assurance, payment strategies, private cloud, providers, reconciliation, remittance

True Availability – Part 2: Cloud Protection

Guest Blogger: Chris Seib, Co-Founder & CTO, InstaMed

Last week, I highlighted some common oversights by businesses when leveraging a private cloud that increase the risk of long-term data outages, and detailed the best practices and tips to use in discussions with current or potential vendor partners in order to protect your business. Below is Part 2 of this post, focusing on disaster recovery, business continuity and security.

Disaster Recovery

Even with high degrees of local redundancy in a private cloud data center,

Tagged Best Practice, Compliance, Disaster Recovery, EHNAC, HIPAA, HITECH, PCI, private cloud, security, SSAE 16

True Availability: Best Practices on the Cloud

Guest Bloggers: Bill Marvin and Chris Seib, Co-Founders of InstaMed

Last night, I turned on iTunes Match for the first time and streamed music from iCloud while making dinner. Using the cloud to play music worked great, but it made me wonder: what would happen if the cloud went down and my music was unavailable? For five minutes, or for five hours? I’d be annoyed and inconvenienced, forgetting all about my recent delight and the old way I used to do

Tagged Best Practice, Disaster Recovery, private cloud

Achieving Success with Integrated Healthcare Payments

Traditionally, the end-to-end healthcare payments process – from submitting claims to receiving, posting and reconciling payments – has been disjointed and manual, requiring a great deal of paper and leading to errors and delays in payment. However, as providers continue to feel pressure to reduce costs, leveraging integrated technology to streamline these processes is becoming increasingly important. Here’s Eastside Pediatrics’ story and the success they achieved with integrated healthcare payments:

A Series of Problems

Inefficient Claims and Remittance Management Processes

On an

Tagged Administrative Costs, Claim Status, Claims, Clearinghouse, ERA/EFT, healthcare payments, increase collections, patient payments, payment card, practice management system, private cloud, reconciliation, reporting

8 Things ACOs Need to Know About Healthcare Payments

What Is an ACO?

An ACO (accountable care organization) is a healthcare organization made up of providers and payers who come together to give coordinated, patient-centered care. In the public sector, ACOs earn incentives for delivering high-quality care and reducing healthcare costs for Medicare and Medicaid patients. In the private sector, ACOs focus on achieving a high level of wellness and satisfaction for all patients.

What You Should Know About ACO Payments:

1. Increase focus on collecting from patients. As providers work to

Tagged ACO, EHNAC, ERA/EFT, healthcare payments, HIPAA, integrated healthcare payments, patient responsibility, payer-to-provider payments, payers, payment assurance, PCI-DSS, private cloud, providers, reconciliation, remittance

Choosing the Right Clearinghouse: 5 Essential Qualities

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In the healthcare industry, the clearinghouse you work with has a huge impact on your business. The more efficiently your clearinghouse processes and returns your information, the faster you will get paid, and the more payments you will collect.

To gain insight into what providers need from a clearinghouse, we interviewed Kevin Milam, owner of The Billing Center, which does billing, consulting and accrediting for

Tagged Billing, Claim Status, Claims, Clearinghouse, Compliance, EHNAC, healthcare payments, increase collections, InstaMed Network, payer-to-provider payments, payment, payment assurance, private cloud, providers, reconciliation, remittance, reporting

Blog Post Topic: private cloud