No. 2: The check's not in the mail

May 23, 2008 was the date when, by federal law, all health care claims were to be submitted using the National Provider Identifier. Some providers are slow to adopt the NPI and continue to use legacy provider numbers. Claims processors estimate that after the May 23 deadline, rejection rates for Medicare claims quadrupled, costing providers an estimated $25.8 million in denied claims (according to one clearinghouse).

Hospital IT professionals need to work closely with patient accounts staff to assure that the institution's claim submission processes comply with current standards, or take a big hit to cash flow.

No. 1: Train wreck on the road to RHIO

The first National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Dr. David Brailer, envisioned a national health information network, building on the work of regional health information organizations (RHIOs). His vision was inspired by his experience with one of the first RHIOs, the Santa Barbara County Clinical Data Exchange.

However, after running through its original ten million dollars in grant funding, the Santa Barbara RHIO closed in December 2006. It was not alone. A study published in the health policy journal Health Affairs found that of the RHIOs that had existed in July 2006, nearly one in four was defunct.

What wrecked the RHIOs? Dr. Brailer and other commentators speculate that while information-sharing efforts benefit the community as a whole, there is not enough economic benefit for individual providers to justify the cost of building stable interfaces.

Public policy experts agree that hospitals and other health care providers must make substantial investments in health information technology in coming decades, to achieve the gains in efficiency and quality that our vast health care system needs. This investment will be not achieve the return we need without learning from past mistakes in implementing HIT.

What other healthcare IT horror stories have you heard or experienced? Send them to editor@healthcareitnews.com.