Morning Headlines 1/31/17

Copy Fees and Limitation of Patients’ Access to Their Own Medical Records

A JAMA article addresses the continued problems patients are experiencing when requesting a copy of their medical records, despite the widespread use of EHRs that should minimize the burden and cost of fulfilling these requests.

Fitbit Cutting 6% of Workforce as Results Miss Estimates

Fitbit reports that it  will miss Q4 revenue estimates by a wide margin, citing declining demand for fitness trackers. The company announces that it will eliminate 110 jobs to reduce costs. Share prices fell 16 percent on the news.

Kaiser Permanente faces $2.5M-plus in penalties for Medi-Cal data shortfall

Kaiser Permanente faces $2.5 million in penalties for failing to supply California regulators with properly formatted claims data from its Medicaid managed-care plans. The issue was originally raised in 2016, and a corrective action plan was agreed upon that gave Kaiser until January 1, 2017 to reformat and resubmit its data, but corrected claims were never resubmitted.

Can Big Data Help Cancer Patients Avoid ER Visits?

Penn Medicine using big data to try and forecast when lung cancer patients will end up in the emergency room. Current algorithms are reportedly able to predict one-third of these ER visits, at which point patients can be called and scheduled for a clinic visit.