Posted:
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Category:
Medical Transcription Training, Pharmacy Technician Training
A new eBook for medical coders was recently released by its author, Nancy Krall, of icd-diagnosis.com, a help website for medical coders in search of the correct medical codes to use in their documents, for those who need to prepare for credentialing exams such as those in medical billing and coding training, in pharmacy technician classes, or in medical transcription training.
The eBook, ICD Medical Thesaurus For Coders, supplies coders with the synonyms they often need to look up the correct symptoms or diagnoses so that billing claims can be paid. Being a thesaurus the medical terminology in the eBook has been matched up with synonymous terminology which has the same or similar meaning of the original medical term. Krall, as a nurse and a trainer in a coding department, saw the need for a resource to help coders with the medical ICD terminology. ICD Medical Thesaurus is available at Amazon’s Kindle Store at amzn.to/yzvVlB for $3.99.
The eBook comes at just the right time. The shift to ICD-10 by October 1, 2013 means that the 14,000 medical codes in ICD-9 that the medical community now uses will balloon to some 64,000 codes. The extra 50,000 codes will enable medical coders to be a lot more precise than before in coding for specific disease diagnoses. Krall hopes that ICD Medical Thesaurus will make it easier for medical coding employees to find the correct codes for problem-free claims.
Meditec.com, a top portal for medical billing and coding training, pharmacy technician classes, and medical transcription training, provides medical coders the right coursework to be able to work right away with ICD-10 when it’s implemented.
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Posted:
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Category:
Medical Transcription Training, Pharmacy Technician Training
In March 2011 the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) officially became the Clinical Documentation Industry Association (CDIA), to reflect the group’s envisioned expanded role beyond medical transcription, editing, voice, and speech recognition. CDIA said that its new involvement now addresses every point in clinical documentation, including medical billing and coding training, pharmacy technician classes, and medical transcription training,
The new name is an adaptation to the evolution of the industry, now pulled beyond its original form by technological change and outsourcing. According to CDIA, the overwhelming majority of the businesses doing medical transcription are small firms now struggling to cope with the changes in a still highly profitable industry. CDIA hopes to become the industry resource for these companies.
“Complete and accurate clinical documentation is mission critical for healthcare providers,” said Peter Masanotti, a founding partner of CDIA. He explained that information captured without quality-assurance measures or best-practice processes often produce errors that could snowball down the healthcare delivery system. CDIA coordinates with other organizations and standards-setting groups to develop best-practice processes and guidelines to ensure quality clinical documentation.
Meditec.com, a top portal for medical billing and coding training, pharmacy technician classes, and medical transcription training, provides medical coders and medical transcriptionists the kind of training that enables them to cope with the rapidly changing landscape of the clinical documentation industry.
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Posted:
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Category:
ISO Training
With over a billion vehicles on the road worldwide today, the importance of a body of comprehensive and implementable guidelines on road vehicles is critical. ISO had foreseen this need and created ISO/TC 22, Road vehicles, a technical committee which has developed over 700 standards and updates thus far. These standards range from those addressing such basics as wheels and braking systems, to crash protection and road-handling ability. Many seek to promote or improve safety.
The ISO/TC 22 standards apply to road vehicles from mopeds, through cars to articulated good vehicles. Training for these standards follow in the tradition of such training sets as ISO 9001 training (quality management) and ISO 14001 training (environmental management), as well as ISO 22000 training (food safety management) and ISO 27001 training (information security management).
ISO has created other technical committees in response to evolving issues related to the road vehicle, including:
ISO/TC 204, Intelligent transport systems. This committee has developed over 110 standards and updates. ISO/TC 204 involves 26 countries and 24 as observers.
ISO/TC 31, Tyres, rims and valves. Its current portfolio has now 75 standards and updates. Twenty-one countries and 26 observers constitute this committee.
ISO/TC 176, Quality management and quality assurance. This committee has produced the technical specification ISO/TS 16949, which has become the global benchmark for quality management by automotive suppliers.
In preparation for the future of road vehicles, ISO is working closely with partners of the World Standards Cooperation (WSC) – the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommuncation Union (ITU).
ISOcampus.com, a portal of top e-learning hub 360training.com, offers ISO 9001 training, ISO 14001 training, ISO 22000 training, and ISO 27001 training.
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Posted:
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Category:
ISO Training
The latest ISO technical specification in the ISO 22000 series of standards for food safety management systems has been released. ISO/TS 22002-3:2011 was developed to ensure that farmers maintain and deliver their products hygienically, mitigating food safety hazards and performing their part in the food-supply chain. ISO training providers will soon make the coursework for this technical specification available to complement ISO 22000 training.
ISO/TS 22002-3 is actually one of a series of support documents in the ISO 22000 series, specifying requirements for food safety prerequisite programs (PRPs). PRPs constitute the essential conditions and activities needed to make sure that hygiene is practiced throughout the food chain during production, handling, and provision of food.
“The chain from farm to fork may be a long one, even global in scale, involving many different participants,” said Dominique Berget, leader of the ISO team that developed the new document. “Therefore, it’s important to ensure food safety right from the very first link, which is often the farm. ISO/TS 22002-3 provides state-of-art requirements and guidance for getting this right.”
ISO/TS 22002-3 is useful to all organizations and farm groups, regardless of size and complexity, that need to implement PRPs in line with ISO 22000, the ISO standard established in 2005 that specifies the basic requirements for food safety management.
ISOcampus.com, a portal of e-learning hub 360training.com, helps ISO promote awareness and compliance with international standards by offering ISO 22000 training (food safety management), as well as other ISO courses such as ISO 9001 training (quality management), ISO 14001 training (environmental management), and ISO 27001 training (information security management).
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Posted:
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Category:
Insurance Training
Confirming what is already widely known or has long been expected in the wake of a number of huge natural disasters worldwide in 2011, insurance companies are now on the verge of paying more for their own policies, the so-called reinsurance, and causing higher property insurance rates for policyholders almost everywhere this year.
When a natural calamity occurs in disaster-prone places such as Texas, years of premium profits—courtesy of Texas insurance license holders and those who have finished their mandatory Texas insurance continuing education—are wiped out in a matter of hours.
Reinsurance America Inc. and the Insurance Information Institute reported this January that insured losses worldwide in 2011 totaled $105 billion, supplanting the $101 billion posted in 2005. The giant earthquake that spawned the catastrophic tsunami in Japan and the temblor that shook New Zealand made up half of those losses.
Locally, tornadoes emerged as the most expensive disasters. They, in fact, accounted for the fourth highest cost for insured losses in United States history at $21.3 billion, bested only by 9/11, Hurricane Andrew, and Hurricane Katrina.
Insurance Information Institute warned that property insurance rates should be expected to increase, especially in hurricane-prone areas such as the Mississippi Coast and Florida. Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, however, chafed at the warning. “We have to look at rate increases based on their merit. I’m not opposed to granting small increases, but I don’t like huge rate increases.”
LearnInsurance.com, a portal of e-learning hub 360training.com, offers Texas insurance continuing education and Texas adjusters license online program to insurance agents.
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Posted:
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Category:
Insurance Training
Disasters have far-reaching consequences—even for insurance it seems. The profitability of U.S. property and casualty insurers nosedived last year (its lowest level since 2008), following huge losses resulting from natural disasters, which nullified gains in sales and investment income.
No stranger to natural disasters, Texas, which just suffered a catastrophic wildfire outbreak in late 2011, has seen its Texas insurance license holders and those who have finished their mandatory Texas insurance continuing education going on overdrive to help affected homeowners settle claims.
The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America reported this January that insurers posted a 1.9 percent annualized rate of return on policyholders’ surplus through Sept. 30, the lowest the rate has been since the 1.2 percent return in 2008, when the industry faced losses from Hurricane Ike and on investments.
To compensate for the losses, Travelers Cos. (TRV) and Allstate Corp. (ALL) are leading the way for other insurers in raising prices for coverage to boost shareholder returns after claims from storms and low interest rates weighed down results.
Disasters, including the catastrophic Hurricane Irene, cost the industry $9.5 billion in the third quarter, a full $6.6 billion higher than last year’s losses.
Travelers CEO Jay Fishman informed an investor conference this January that his company is driving “for improved rate and terms” across its business. Tornadoes in April and May obliterated Traveler’s second- quarter profit. Irene pulled down net income in the third quarter.
LearnInsurance.com provides Texas insurance continuing education and Texas adjusters license online program to insurance agents.
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Posted:
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Category:
Industrial Skills
A new app is on the market to freeze out the grind of daily business and let contractors concentrate on building and constructing. It’s called SAM Pro Enterprise from the good folks at Data-Basics Inc and it’s specifically designed for HVACR contractors involved in service work, construction, and facilities management. It can, of course, be also used by those still finishing their contractor continuing education (or electrical continuing education), which is a major requisite for contractor license renewal.
Because it’s an integrated modular-based Windows software solution—it has 19 modules divided into four categories—it performs proactively to manage daily business operations, end to end. Its four categories are: field service management, CRM, finance and accounting, and sales and procurement. Depending on the modules used, SAM Pro handles back-office components, and performs workflow and service management, reporting and notification, and Web-based field-service and dispatch tasks.
At SAM Pro’s core is a rules-based management engine that employs a predetermined set of rules to automate workflow and to automatically accomplish many critical day-to-day functions, including those in the field (wirelessly and via the Web).
Among its modules are: the back office finance and accounting modules, the field service management modules, the PM Master Scheduler module, the inventory module, the purchase orders module, and the optional CRM modules.
IndustrialInstitute.com, a portal of leading e-learning hub 360training.com, continually updates contractors through its electrical continuing education and continuing education contractor programs.
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Posted:
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Category:
Industrial Skills
While other industries, insurance and real estate for instance, are going to attempt a rally this New Year, the construction sector is being more conservative. Construction industry consultant FMI Corp., Raleigh, N.C., is forecasting just a 6-percent increase in 2012 for construction, or with inflation factored in just 3-percent increase in 2006 dollars. Nevertheless, given last year’s thin portfolio, the forecast is good news for contractors across America and a clear signal for the others to finish their contractor continuing education (or electrical continuing education, as the case may be), which is an important requirement for contractor license renewal.
“Our forecast calls for a 12-percent increase in residential construction for 2012,” FMI said. “While that appears to be a strong recovery, consider housing is just starting to move off the bottom. The total represents stronger multifamily construction and home improvements as well as single-family housing. In constant 2006 dollars, the gain is more like 9 percent for 2012.”
There is good news, too, for the commercial side, based on FMI data. FMI noted that CII market sectors will increase in 2012.
The EMCOR Group, for its part, expected a slight gain in 2012. “Absent our acquisitions, our backlog is up 30 percent,” said Anthony J. Guzzi, EMCOR president and CEO. “But it had fallen in half from the peak to trough. So going back up is a good sign, although it’s not a broad-based recovery in commercial, and residential has to eventually come up.”
IndustrialInstitute.com, a portal of leading e-learning hub 360training.com, continually updates contractors through its electrical continuing education and continuing education contractor programs.
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Posted:
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
Category:
Food handler, Food Safety
With food safety and public health on top of most everyone’s list in the food industry this new year, the top food safety organizations came together last Jan 2012 to discuss a critically important issue—food attribution, that is, associating specific foodborne illnesses to specific foods. Because of the importance of the meeting, attendees included the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The meeting was held in Washington, D.C.
In addition to existing FDA food safety guidelines, many states are now forging stricter food safety standards that form the foundation of food safety training for food handler certification of restaurant workers in their jurisdictions.
“The purpose of the daylong meeting [was] to discuss federal approaches to food source attribution and outline efforts to develop harmonized food source attribution fractions to inform food safety strategies,” according to the organizers. “The meeting also [was] used to review a draft Strategic Plan developed by the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration [IFSAC], which was formed this year to increase collaboration on analytic projects.”
At Learn2serve.com, a portal of top e-learning hub 360training.com, online training programs in food safety training and food handler certification help address the many critical issues of food safety, which is a top concern of many states this year and an ever-growing advocacy of the dining public.
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Posted:
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
Category:
Food handler, Food Safety
The New Year is serving up a plateful of food safety-related laws in several states, a direct result of the rash of foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years.
The years-old FDA food safety guidelines are not mandatory, but are used by many state and local jurisdictions to develop their food safety standards, which form the foundation of food safety training for food handler certification.
In Oregon, for instance, a new law now allows the state Department of Agriculture to forego routine inspection of food establishments selling only pre-packaged foods or of establishments that do not sell food and beverage as their primary items.
In California, a new prohibition involves any beer with caffeine included in it as a separate ingredient.
Both Oregon and California now prohibit the possession, sales, trade or distribution of shark fins. Shark fins bought before Jan. 1, 2012 can still be included in menus until Jan. 1, 2013.
The National Conference on State Legislatures (NCSL) expects “food safety and systems” will be on many states’ agenda next year.
“With the recent deaths from listeria-contaminated cantaloupes and salmonella outbreaks in eggs, food safety is topping many agendas,” NCSL said. “Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act in January 2011, which enhances the nation’s food safety regimen, much of which is done by states.”
At Learn2serve.com, a portal of top e-learning hub 360training.com, online training programs in food safety training and food handler certification address the many critical issues of food safety, which is a top concern of many states this year.
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