Meditec, a Utah based medical transcription company, celebrates being in business for 40 years this year. As they continue to expand, the questions remain the same. Society often wonders about which direction health safety is profressing.

Case in point: Patients’ first sign that something is changing may involve lessening of a big (and often totally unnecessary) indignity (and risk). One in four hospitalized patients have a urinary catheter inserted (whether needed or not – it’s mostly for staff convenience). The catheters inserted trigger more than half a million infections of the urinary tract per year, the most common hospital-caused disease. Most patients don’t need them; they are simply a precaution after certain surgeries. And many of them are left in place for much longer than necessary. A national study found half of the hospitals in the test did not even keep track of who had had a catheter inserted. Fewer than one in 10 hospitals do a daily check to see if the catheter is still needed.

Pushing for improved patient safety and quality care issues, Medicare won’t pay hospitals when they commit certain errors. Medicare will start hitting hospitals where it hurts in October, and other insurers are hot on the trail.

Here is the list of errors that Medicare will stop paying for if that service creates an “injury or other sequela.” Providers and coders please note that if you code and bill for any of these complications, your practice won’t get paid.

• Urinary tract infections from catheters
• Bloodstream infections (septicemia) from catheters
• Falls
• Bed sores or pressure ulcers (decubitus ulcers)
• Objects left within a patient’s body during surgery
• Blood incompatibility, (giving an incorrect blood type, e.g., lab error)
• Infection after heart surgery (mediastinitis)
• Air embolism (air in a blood vessel-typically from an injection or IV)

Those facts have the hospitals exploring innovative ways to improve medical transcription and prevent injury and infection. That’s a good thing.

Attempts are actually underway to create a medFICO score by collecting patient medical billing data from hospital systems with a combined $100 billion in annual net revenue. The scores would reflect a history of on-time payments (and of course, the payments not made on time or at all). The company claims that the only purpose is to determine after a visit or surgery if the patient can pay the bill.

The medFICO score are being designed with the industry giant Fair Isaac Corp., and could debut as early as this summer.

Consumer advocacy groups fear that the medFICO scores will be checked before patients are treated, so that those with low scores could either not receive care at all or would receive lower quality care. Spokesman for the scoring effort claim that the patient’s score will not be checked until after the patient is discharged and the bill already exists.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, reporters to the scoring agencies cannot indicate what the services were for. That way, allegedly a person looking at the information would not be able to guess what the treatment was for.

Hospitals and other caregivers already tap into regular credit scores (often without the patient’s permission), but those are not necessarily a good indication of whether a person will pay a medical bill. Such credit scores are based on voluntary purchases whereas health care debt is largely involuntary.

Meditec can be contacted for more information by reaching them online at meditec.com or by calling 801-771-1900.

Charles R. Leidheiser, D.O., founder of Making Big Medicine, is launching a new medical web site that is new and different because it includes ALL health care providers including but not entirely limited to all physicians, all types of Nurses, Dentists, Podiatrists, Physical Therapists, Clinical Psychologists, Optometrists, Nurse Practitioners, Licensed Physician Assistant and perhaps some Alternative Medicine Practitioners. We wish to be as all-inclusive as possible and provide forums for all to learn about each other as well as educate the lay public.

Features of the web site include:

• the ability for members to create their own personal page
• write their own blog
• participate in forums to discuss health care issues
• post job listings
• create a resume which can then be submitted to a job listing(s) on the site
• a resource section full of useful information and links
• list and view medical events around the country
• upload images to the site galleries
• submit articles
• create polls and surveys
• network with colleagues
• use the invite script to invite and keep in contact with your colleagues.

The site also features the option for site users to create their own group. For example a nurse could create a group for nurses, by creating this group they have now created their own section of the web site where information specifically for that group can be created and archived. The group creator may then choose to make the group public or to make the group involvement by invitation only. Now you have groups working within the network.

Most content on the site is invisible or blocked from the casual visitor to the site due to the fact that discussions, articles and posts are health care related and are handled with confidence and shared with only other health care providers. The site has multiple levels of access, for example a job seeker will only have access to job listings and the resume builder. Employers and recruiters will only have access to the job listing builder and current resumes. Health care providers will have full access to all the features of the web site. Anonymous visitors to the site will have very limited access.

Founder, Charles R. Leidheiser, D.O., is very passionate about this project and believes that http://www.makingbigmedicine.com will be a social networking leader in the health care field.

Registration is quick and simple, you fill out a profile form and tell us a little about yourself and your credentials. The site will then send you an email to confirm that is was indeed you who registered for the site. The site administrators will then confirm your membership to the site and assign your access level accordingly.

Visit today http://www.makingbigmedicine.com and become a part of the full featured health care provider social network.