INDIANAPOLIS, IN – (July 14, 2014) – Zotec Partners, LLC (Zotec), a leading provider of billing and practice management services to hospital-based physicians, is pleased to announce that it has hired esteemed industry veteran Mark Scruggs, as a partner of corporate strategy.

Just in time for your summer reading pleasure, the ACR has posted detailed summaries of the proposed rules for the 2015 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and the 2015 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System.

As the Department of Health and Human Services prepares for year two of the federal health insurance exchange (HIX), it recently announced plans for an automated re-enrollment process.

ACA has accelerated the rate of change in healthcare and payors are under the gun to make the transition from an industry in which the customer is a corporation to one in which consumers call the shots. Many current market leaders could be unseated, predicts a June report from McKinsey & Company.

It could have (and has) been worse, but an overall 2% reduction in Medicare reimbursement paid under the MPFS will have repercussions for any radiology practice. That’s the overall impact of practice expense (PE) RVU changes (and a slightly lower conversion factor) contained in the proposed 2015 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.

Deborah DiSanzo, CEO of Philips Healthcare, has left the company in advance of quarterly results anticipated to fall short of expectations. Philips’ top executive Frans Van Houten, CEO, will manage the group, with healthcare business units reporting directly to him.

Kenneth Kaufman, CEO, Kaufman Hall, sounded the alarm at HFMA’s recent annual meeting in Las Vegas: Hospitals must engage with patients in an increasingly outpatient-focused way, lower their cost structure, aggressively reposition for fee-for-value payment and prepare now for new competitive threats.

With so much healthcare news coming out of the Capitol, it’s obvious that healthcare remains a priority for the country’s leadership. The office of Health and Human Services (HHS) is preparing for enrollment in year two of the federal health insurance exchange and announced that it will launch auto-enrollment to give existing consumers a simple way to remain in the same plan next year, unless they want to shop for another plan and choose to make changes. This announcement comes amidst reports of coverage gaps for those currently enrolled in some state plans, as well as lingering, unresolved issues stemming from the original enrollment launch debacle last fall.