Remember that big sweeping healthcare reform act that turned into law last year? How couldn’t you? It took more heat than a derelict battleship during an A-Bomb test. But between “death panels” and fierce debates over the inclusion of a public option, people quickly lost sight of all the potential improvements the nearly $1 trillion over ten years law is set to put into place. Many of the immediate changes were talked about, but while we wait for 2014 when the majority of the law goes into effect most people are sitting around unaware that big changes to medical coding and other down-to-earth aspects of healthcare are about to occur.

In fact, changes to the way patient data and medical records are handled will be underway by the beginning of 2012. Starting in January of that year, hospitals are going to be expected to start making the big switch to digitized records. [Read more…]