The White House said it wants to bolster spending on health information technology under President Barack Obama's fiscal 2011 budget.  In its spending breakdown, the administration plans to push for $110 million more for wiring doctors' offices and hospitals; $290 million for community health centers; and $79 million for rural healthcare.

Rank-and-file senators stopped just short of sounding a death knell for a broad-but-troubled effort to overhaul the healthcare sector. The president's suggestion about a cooling-off period—a short cooling-off period—ring true with some Senators who think that it might be good to give them a chance to reorganize and re-order.  Sen.

Health care reform got a mention, but President Obama spent the bulk of his first State of the Union address laying out his plans for boosting the economy.  While it is clear that he wants Congress to continue work on health care reform, saying that he will not quit and offering for anyone with ideas on how to fix health care come forward, he cozied up to the middle class, talking about upping tax credits for child care, reducing the cost of college, and creating clean-energy jobs.

Fears about President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul increased significantly in December, according to a new poll released as the legislation’s future hangs in doubt. The monthly poll from the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation measured consumers’ views of how a remake would affect their own finances and access to care, among other things.  The President is scheduled to deliver the 2010 State of the Union address at 9 p.m. ET tonight, as healthcare reform efforts face new challenges in Congress.

Despite the headlines coming off of Capitol Hill, Congress is discussing passage of a Medicare pay-fix before 21% cut hits on March 1.  Top lawmakers are discussing options - including a multi-year pay fix.  According to Washington insiders, changing Medicare's payment formula to break the cycle of large annual pay cuts and temporary fixes to your payments remains a top priority. You can expect Congress to continue with 0.5% and 1% increases to your payments.  Medbizonics understands the impact Capitol Hill can have on your practice.  A core focus on technology that

A recent Commonwealth Fund-supported study published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine reveals current commercial electronic medical records (EMRs) may be less helpful in terms of care coordination than they are in improving billing.  Researchers at the the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) in Washington, D.C., found that EMRs make information available at the point of care , but they seem less helpful in the exchange of information across care setting and between providers.  Under the proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services,

House democrats met behind closed doors Friday to discuss an incremental approach to healthcare reform instead of one big bill to reform the insurance sector, protect patients' rights and change how care is delivered.  Three or four bills would be introduced in rapid succession that would involve more-popular and less-controversial components of the broader healthcare reform packages.  President Barack Obama says his healthcare overhaul has "run into a bit of a buzz saw", but he says he will continue working to complete the sweeping legislation.&

There still may be two options for passing healthcare reform in the near future: adding a "corrections" bill to satisfy unhappy senators or passing a scaled-down version based on insurance reform.  Nancy Pelosi stated that certain provisions in the Senate bill would simply not survive in the House - in particular, the excise tax on "Cadillac" benefits.  These development rule out the possibility of getting a bill to Obama's desk before Scott Brown is seated.

Medicare's sustainable growth rate, or SGR formula has threatened cuts to physicians payments every year since 2003.  Congress has stepped in each time to prevent those cuts from occurring.  Physicians face a 21.2% cut at the of February unless Congress intervenes again. Next week, the Senate is expected to vote on a debt-ceiling bill that could possibly contain a permanent fix to the SGR.  In the House, similar legislation to revamp the SGR passed last November.

The Obama administrations' attempt to overhaul healthcare has been moving slowly, progressing further than any other comprehensive healthcare bill in recent history.  It had been doing so along party lines.  With the loss of a Senate seat on Tuesday to Republican Scott Brown, the Democrats no longer have a filibuster proof 60 seat majority.  President Obama signaled that he might be willing to scale back his proposed healthcare overhaul to a version that could attract bipartisan support.  A compromise bill might take steps to restrict malpractice lawsuits or provide aid