State insurance exchanges: Hospital IT's next challenge

The launch of the state insurance exchanges on Oct. 1 is not top of mind for hospital CIOs, who are dealing with everything from Meaningful Use and ICD-10 to ACOs and value-based reimbursement. Nevertheless, the exchanges and the accompanying Medicaid expansion in some states will affect the IT departments of hospitals and health systems in a number of ways, say consultants and an official of the American Hospital Association (AHA). First, the prospective coverage of millions of uninsured Americans will require changes to the revenue cycle management (RCM) systems that hospitals use for billing and collections.