The Following is an excerpt from Jack Huntress’s blog: Common Ground

Thanks for using MediConnect and for mentioning us on your blog.

“Summary:  I took the next step with digital records by using the MediConnect service.

My foray into digital health records continues.  Recently I paid MediConnect to aggregate my records from three different hosptials (childhood, college and current) and put them in a digital format that could be consumed by Google Health.  Even then I’m sure I am missing about 25% of my overall records that are scattered at different hospitals.   I also went in and filled out my profile on Google Health.  

While many are concerned about privacy and certainly that is worrisome, I have the general feeling that not knowing my history (immunizations, shots, xrays, MRIs, blood work etc) is much worse so I’m taking some steps forward.

The Google Health service is linked to CVS, Walgreens, BC/BS and a couple dozen other providers with more being added all the time.

My feeling is that unless you have a great system for keeping and filing information you should at least consider this as something worth doing.”

Shakespeare’s Romeo once stated “What’s in a name?” Well, doctors, hospitals and insurers are asking the same question in their line of work…“What’s in a Code?”

 A whole lot, according to the Wall Street Journal. Currently, doctors and hospitals use the ICD-9CM billing codes, however, the new ICD-10 billing codes which are coming in October 2011 call for more details about the patients, their conditions and their treatments. (See “Look Out, Docs: Here Comes ICD-10)

For example currently, there are 5 codes for a sprained ankle; with the ICD-10 codes there will be 45 different codes, with very specific details attached to each one. The new system will have 155,000 codes including 68,000 codes describing diagnoses, up from 13,000 currently, and 87,000 codes for different medical procedures, compared with 3,000 today. Hospitals use both types of codes, but physicians use only the diagnostic codes.

“That’s very complicated to a provider,” an official at the Medical Group Management Association tells the WSJ. A rushed doc might just check “unspecified” to describe the injury.”

Apparently, the providers of our healthcare system could be in for a shock.
For doctors and insurers the battle lines are drawn. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are pushing for this new system, because they claim it can boost claims insurers return to doctors for coding errors by 10%. However, it could become a costly headache for patients and doctors − to the tune of $1.64 billion over the course of fifteen years. 

So what is better, having more specific information on each patient or having a frustrated doctor, who just puts in an unspecified code so he can get paid?  So I start where I began, “What’s in a Code?” A lot of money and a lot of reasons for doctors and insurers to keep on fighting.

MediConnect Global today joins thousands of people from many different groups and organizations volunteering their time and services in support of the people and clean up of the Gulf hurricane disaster areas by donating digitized back up copies of archived medical records to those who may have lost their paper medical records due to the storms.

MediConnect has retrieved or received requests to retrieve thousands of medical records from organizations in the areas most affected by Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Gustav, and Tropical Storm Fay. MediConnect will donate digitized copies of medical records to individuals, physicians, hospitals, law firms, insurance carriers or independent agents located in the designated disaster areas who submit a request accompanied by a HIPAA-compliant patient authorization. Those who need their records can go to www.mediconnect.net to begin the process of getting any records that may be in MediConnect’s archive.

MediConnect’s donations join many relief efforts from people, churches, and other organizations providing help in the devastated areas.

MediConnect has an extensive archive of digitized medical records—records that were previously retrieved. If people or healthcare organizations within the disaster areas need to replace any medical records, MediConnect will donate free of charge any that it contains in its archives.

Simply go to the MedConnect Web site and click on the Hurricane Ike link. Fill out and submit a simple form and a MediConnect representative will contact you to coordinate any archived records the company may have.