Morning Headlines 3/5/15

The Next Marketing Frontier: Your Medical Records

The Wall Street Journal covers freeware-EHR vendor Practice Fusion and its decision to embed big pharma-funded vaccine reminders into its EHR. Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard explains “For every project we do that drives forth public health or gives data away, we need to make sure it’s balanced out by a monetizable exercise.”

100 medical societies warn about possible ICD-10 problems

The American Medical Association and 99 other professional associations are calling on CMS to improve its ICD-10 transition plan following recent end-to-end tests that resulted in 19 percent of submitted claims being kicked back, almost all due to errors made by the submitting organization.

Supreme Court justices split in key challenge to Obamacare subsidies

The Supreme Court hears arguments on King v Burwell, a case that could undermine the Affordable Care Act by stripping subsidies from any consumer that purchased health insurance through Healthcare.gov. Defendants of the ACA argue that withholding subsidies from states that did not launch an insurance exchange would be tantamount to the federal government applying illegal ”coercive pressure” on states.

Despite The Spread Of Health Information Exchange, There Is Little Evidence Of Its Impact On Cost, Use, And Quality Of Care

Health Affairs publishes a literature review of 27 studies finds little evidence that health information exchanges reduce costs or improve outcomes.