Many small practices react with sticker shock when confronting the cost of a fully functional electronic health record (EHR). An eight-step cost/benefit analysis will help a group of any size decide if the technology is a good fit.

The Joint Commission released the 2009 National Patient Safety Goals and related requirements for accredited ambulatory care facilities and offices in which surgery is performed on June 17. The goals apply to more than 15,000 health care organization and programs, the commission said.

Nearly all insurance carriers use multiple conversion factors (CFs) to adjust for the variance in reimbursement rates across the country. The majority of managed-care contracts use a CF multiplied by the resource-based relative value scale (RBRVS) relative value unit (RVU) or a percent of the Medicare physician fee schedule.