This program was put on by the Central and North Florida Health Information Management Systems Society (CNF-HIMSS).
Why should you care?
Some of the challenges outlined by CNF-HIMSS are near-universal among healthcare workers and include the following:
- How should we train our new clinicians to use Electronic Medical Records in our daily work?
- How should we incorporate the legions of newly eligible patients under ObamaCare?
- How should Florida structure its new Medicaid program?
- Can the Florida legislature quickly reach agreement on important matters concerning healthcare?
- For that matter, can the Federal Congress reach agreement on important issues regarding funding?
"We're all in this together!" he said, referring to the importance of adequate funding for state Medicaid recipients accessing care through the emergency room...
"My healthcare and your healthcare costs are about $1,100 per year higher than they would otherwise be because of these uninsured patients."
What can physical therapists do? We can stay informed of the issues and support those that dovetail with issues important to physical therapists.
For instance, most of my readers know that in 2012 the Florida House of Representatives failed to support Governor Rick Scott's proposal to accept Federal funds for about 1.3 million state Medicaid recipients. The Florida Senate passed the Governor's plan but the House responded with a plan that would cover only about 100,000 Floridians. That still left over 1 million uninsured Florida residents!
Physical therapists, especially physical therapist private practice owners, would probably like very much for those 1 million Floridians to have access to physical therapy. Rich Rasmussen wants those people to have access to his hospitals.
When we can find this common ground with hospitals and other advocacy groups then physical therapists can really come together with a common voice to speak to our legislators. We can show our leader that we really are in this together.
