Denial Management

The Wall Street Journal reports on the growth in “denial management” software. (Subscription required, or you can read a summary here.)

Doctors and other health providers use these tools to combat denials and reductions in reimbursement from insurers.

The “denial management” niche is likely to spawn new consulting and service opportunities, as well as growing demand for software.  The above chart from software vendor Athenahealth shows strong five-year growth.

This gives me an interesting tech idea …

Once Again, Health Records Lost

From the Baltimore Sun:

Up to 130,000 former and current patients at St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown have recently been notified that a laptop with personal information was stolen from the hospital in December. Just last week, Johns Hopkins officials reported the loss of thousands of employee and patient records.

We keep reporting on this ongoing problem. There’s going to be an initiative to prevent this kind of catastrophic data loss, either through a private-sector product that protects health data or through government mandate.

Insurance companies that cover health organizations are at risk. So are the organizations themselves. And individuals are being exposed to a number of unpleasant possibilities, from identity theft to blackmail.

Who’s going to step up and address this issue?