Association of American Medical Colleges — Includes list of teaching hospitals.

Virtual Hospital — Includes case studies, medical texts, multimedia educational materials, and many other resources.

American Academy of Professional Coders — Association offers certification program for coders.

American Health Consultants — Hot topics in health care--articles from leading medical publications on clinical medicine, outcomes and quality, physician payment, biotechnology. Conference information, listserv forums, online CME.

Clinical Trials — The U.S. National Institutes of Health, through its National Library of Medicine, has developed ClinicalTrials.gov to provide patients, family members and members of the public current information about clinical research studies

Cyberounds — Interactive grand rounds moderated by distinguished academics, exclusively for physicians, medical students and other selected medical professionals.

Free Medical Journals — The Free Medical Journals Site is dedicated to the promotion of free access to medical journals over the Internet.

Health Forum — Site formed by the merger of the American Hospital Association and Health Forum. Contains online versions of publications including Hospitals & Health Networks, American Hospital Association News and Health Forum Journal, plus a catalog of books of interest to health care professionals. 

HealthSafetyInfo.com — Includes government and JCAHO resources, how to tips, and news related to healthcare safety issues.

HealthGate — Provides free access to Medline, the National Library of Medicine's clinical database, and access to many other databases for a fee.

Electronic International Classification of Disease   — ICD-9-CM and HCPCS are keyword searchable in this resource.

Internet Medical Terminology Resources — Provides access to ICD-9, DRGs, medical vocabularies, standards, and terminology.

JustCoding.Com — Discussion groups, newsletter, Q & A for coding questions, other coding resources.

Martindale's Health Science Guide — Multimedia resources with teaching files, medical cases, textbooks, and movies.

Medmatrix — Comprehensive directory of clinical resources arranged by specialty and topic, including practice guidelines, clinical trials, decision making, laboratory, and diagnostics. Includes links to clinical journals and the Medline databases.

Medscape — Includes access to the Medline database for searching clinical literature. Also provides access to full-text articles and graphics.

National Library of Medicine — Resources include free access to Medline and other databases and HSTAT, full-text of practice guidelines and other resources.

CliniWeb International — Includes resources from Oregon University, with emphasis on Internal Medicine, and an index to clinical information on the World Wide Web.

Virtual hospital — Includes case studies, medical texts, multimedia educational materials, and many other resources.

The World Wide Web Virtual Library: Biosciences - Medicine — Indexes and search tools for locating clinical resources on the Internet.

Computer-Based Patient Record Institute (CPRI) — Merged with Healthcare Open Systems and Trials (HOST)to form CPRI-HOST. Includes information on standards, confidentiality, and developments, along with a products catalog and upcoming events.

Health Data Management contains a wealth of easy-to-read information on current topics related to health care, especially the management of data. The site also has a free subscription to the weekly magazine HDM Week.

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society — Information about the association and links to Internet sites related to information systems and medicine.

Medical Informatics, University of California, Davis — Site includes papers & publications, projects & demos, and tools and resources related to medical informatics.

Medical Records Institute — Organization's purpose is to promote electronic health records. Site includes information about standards and abstracts of newsletters.

MGMA Information Systems Discussion Forum — An interactive bulletin board dedicated to discussion of computer applications and computerized functions within practices.

Telemedicine Information Exchange, Telemedicine Research Center — Information on telemedicine projects and research, funding sources, conferences, legal and ethical issues, products and services and bibliography with abstracts.

American Telemedicine Association — Telemedicine news, events, and resources

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) — Web site for the Workgroup on Electronic Data Interchange. Lists education programs, seminars, publications, and workgroup committees and contacts related to difference aspects of electronic data interchange (EDI).

Healthcare Financial Management Association — Information about association activities, publications, etc.

Healthcare Expenditures — Bureau of Labor Statistics news releases on healthcare expenditures, CPI, and other employment statistics.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality — Includes practice guidelines developed by agency. Was the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR)

American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics — Educational and research organization devoted to critical thought in health law, medicine, bioethics and patient care.

Census information: US Bureau of the Census — Contains frequently referred to tables from major publications. Information on obtaining complete reports.

Centers for Disease Control — Includes Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report & CDC daily summaries. Guidelines and results of research projects on diseases, accidents, infection control, preventive medicine, etc.

Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)

Consumer Price Index — Site includes news releases, databases, tabled data related to CPI and other employment statistics.

Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) — Includes press releases, policy information, fact sheets.

Federal Register & Congressional Record

Library of Congress Site for Federal Congressional & Legislative Information
House of Representatives
GPO Access includes Federal Register

Federal Web Locator — Provides links to Federal government servers on the World Wide Web.

FEDWORLD — Links to more than 100 agency bulletin boards

FindLaw — Comprehensive listing of Internet legal resources, including subject area resources (health law), legal organizations, directories, and Federal and state legislative and legal resources.

FirstGov — The only official U.S. Government portal to 30 million pages of government information, services, and online transactions. Offers U.S. government-wide search tool and directory

Food and Drug Administration — Site includes safety alerts, agency announcements, and drug and medical device approvals.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) (formerly HCFA) — Resources include Medicare Handbook, Medicaid and Medicare statistics, payment and AAPCC rates, regulations & proposed rules, and staff contacts.

HIPAA Administrative Simplification    — Resources on the Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Medicare's Program Integrity Home Page — Medicare fraud and abuse program information.

Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

CMS's Resource Based Data Files — Includes the file Procedure Code Utilization by Specialty for Medicare allowed services

Health Hippo — A database of law, policy and regulatory material related to health care.

HIPAA Resource Center — Maintained by the MGMA Government Affairs Department.

MGMA's Government Affairs Department — Legislative and regulatory information

National Center for Health Statistics — Health care statistics from the Center for Disease Control. Summary data & fact sheets from reports. Ordering information for complete reports.

National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) — Links to state government sites which track state legislation activity and contain texts of bills.

National Institutes of Health — Includes CDC statistics, Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Reports, AIDS info.

National Library of Medicine — Resources include free access to Medline and other databases and HSTAT, full-text of practice guidelines and other resources.

Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Department of Health and Human Services — Checkout the OIG Electronic Reading Room for compliance guidance and advisory opinions.

OSHA Standards — Full text of CFR 40 & MSDS safety data sheets. Information on OSHA regulations

Part B News contains breaking news about Medicare Part B. Read up-to-date information about federal legislation and rules that affect Medicare providers, especially those that accept Part B reimbursement

PSN HealthCare HIPAA resources — Includes information on current HIPAA regulations and sample contracts and policies for HIPAA.

Regsource — A free portal organizing worldwide Regulatory, Clinical, Toxicological, CMC and other drug/device development-related information on the Internet

US House of Representatives — Information on bills, resolutions, House schedule, and how to contact representatives.

US Senate — Information on legislative activities, committees, Senate members and leadership, history, etc.

Hospital organizations

American Hospital Association — Association activities, legislative updates, education programs,publications, etc.

American Hospital Directory — Hospital utilization (especially for Medicare patients), services provided and cost data.

Association of American Medical Colleges — Includes list of teaching hospitals.

Federation of American Hospitals — Represents nearly 1,700 owned and managed hospitals and health systems.

Hospitalists — News and articles, meetings, links, cases, opinion, jobs, and an online forum for hospitalists.

Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Price Index (CPI), unemployment statistics, employee benefits, employment numbers, hours and earnings by state.

US Department of Labor — Informative site for regulations and legislation related to employment. Includes information on minimum wage laws (Federal and state), Family and Medical Leave Act (fact sheets & compliance guides), required posters for the work place. Search index to compliance assistance information on specific issues.

HRIMMall — Provides links to HR associations and organizations, products and services, other Internet resources.

Jobstar — Career management site, includes links to sites for salary surveys.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) — Occupational health statistics. Text of SIC manual for accessing industry specific data. OSHA developed standards, including those related to blood-born pathogens. Compliance assistance related to regulations.

Salary.com — Includes a Salary Wizard for calculating compensation by metropolitan area and position. Warning: Salary.com does not specify the sources for their salary survey data.

Society for Human Resource Management — Full-text access to lead articles from Society's journal. Buyer's guide for human resource related products and services. Includes comprehensive listing of other human resource sites on the Internet.

Workforce Online — Database of full-text articles from Workforce (which was Personnel Journal). Advice and links to sites for using the Internet for recruitment. Winning Ideas: award winning HR programs.

MedMark — A comprehensive directory of links to schools, foundations, hospitals, professional societies, journals, and patient information with an international flavor (developed in Korea).

Medical Matrix — An extensive listing of reviewed and ranked medical Web sites, includes clinical resources, e-mail lists, prescription help, continuing medical education, and online journals and texts.

American Association of Health Plans — Source for information on HMOs and other health plan models. Site includes table of contents of journals with full text of major articles, publications catalog, and links to members' sites. (Formed by the joining of Group Health Association of America and American Managed Care Review Association)

AAPCC rates for managed care contracts

 

Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) —Site includes policy positions, legislation, strategies for integrated systems.

 

Interstudy - HMO Data — Interstudy gathers data on specific HMOs, growth of HMOs, and market penetration by region of the country

Managed Care Forum Web — A product of the American Medical Specialty Organization (AMSO), their goal is to "impart information and promote understanding of the volatile healthcare industry." Their Managed Care Forum web page has a weekly healthcare related poll question regarding issues surrounding managed health care. Includes open discussion forums on related topics.

Managed Care Daily Briefing — News briefs advise physicians about capitation, reimbursement, legislation and compensation issues in full text.

The Managed Care Information Center — Provides articles, news, publication information

Managed Care Online — Managed care headline news, book of managed care world records, and links for managed care and legal information.

Medical Data International — Provides information on percent of enrollment in managed care by state and major metropolitan area. Also includes major health plans in metropolitan areas. Details products and services with more information.

MGMA Managed Care Discussion Forum — An interactive bulletin board covering a wide variety of topics and issues related to integration of health care services and managed care.

National Association of Managed Care Physicians — The mission of the association is to "enhance the ability of practicing physicians and other health care professionals to succeed in managed care environments."

American Health Information Management Association — Includes full text of most recent journal issues; career and education information for health information management and medical records.

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society — Includes information on standards, confidentiality, and developments of electronic medical records for HIMSS.

Medical Records Institute — Organization to promote electronic health records. Site has information about standards; includes abstracts of newsletters.

Midwifery Information — Includes articles about midwifery and links to publications & other resources

American College of Nurse Midwives — Includes list of contacts for locating midwives.

National Health Care Skill Standards Project — For voluntary skill standards for health care workers. Sold by WestEd.

American Academy of Physician Assistants — Education, statistics, legislative and reimbursement issues, job announcements, CME programs for PAs.

American College of Nurse Practitioners

Nursing: Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN) — News releases, journal articles, and legislative updates.

NursingWorld — American Nurses Association - association information, news, reading room, and reference room with online journal and newsletter.

Patient education & consumer health

Dr. Koop's web site — Includes consumer health information and chat groups

Healthfinder: Consumer Health Information — Developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this site provides access to health information publications developed by different agencies within the Department, links to health associations, and other consumer health information.

Healthtouch Online — Includes information about prescriptions and medications, health organizations and government agencies, diseases, health, and wellness information.

HealthWeb — Consumer health resources developed by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, sponsored by the National Library of Medicine.

Netwellness — Patient information arranged by topic, latest news releases, and Ask an Expert option.

American Hospital Assocation’s Quality and Patient Safety — Includes articles, case studies, education programs, and other resources.

AHRQ Medical Errors & Patient Safety Research Page — Developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Includes documents, research, the Institute of Medicine’s reports.

National Patient Safety Foundation  — Includes articles, education programs, and a comprehensive bibliography. Sponsored by the American Medical Association.

American College of Physician Executives — Association for physician executives and medical directors.

AHA Health Forum — Contains online versions of publications including Hospitals & Health Networks, American Hospital Association News and Healthcare Forum, plus books, databases, and news releases of interest to health care professionals.

American Medical Association — Information about the AMA and its resources; includes index and text of their Journal (JAMA) and other publications.

Doctor's Guide to the Internet — Patient information and resources on specific diseases, medical news, conferences, discussion forums, financial and business resources, and practice opportunities.

Federation of State Medical Boards covers license requirements and credentialing issues and has links to all medical boards in the United States. This Web site provides information that medical group managers might need when recruiting physicians.

MGMA Specialty Issues Discussion Forum — An interactive bulletin board dedicated to discussion of specific types of practice or issues pertinent to a single specialty.

Achoo Online Healthcare services — A comprehensive resource for health related materials on the Internet. Contains current news about the medical industry. Enables users to search the Internet health newsgroups for specific topics of interest.

AHA Health Forum — Publications, databases and news releases from the American Hospital Association

Center for Health Administration Studies — Information about research projects and data libraries.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) — Web site for the Workgroup on Electronic Data Interchange for electronic claims and HIPAA information.

Solucient — Provides statistical resources for benchmarking, best practices, outcomes, cost management, etc. Includes a list of top 100 hospitals.

Health-Connection — Comprehensive directory featuring sections on hospitals, nursing homes, home health care agencies, health care professionals, financial information, health and medical insurance information, health care industry suppliers and vendors, medical information and health care associations.

Internet Links for Health Managers — Links to Internet health administration resources maintained by the Administrative Medicine Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

MedWeb — Extensive links to Internet health resources arranged by topic, produced by Emory University.

Modern Healthcare — Access to full text of the weekly magazine. Free to search the most recent issues; a charge for searching the complete database.

National Rural Health Association — The association provides access to journal article index, listing of publications, and other resources. The Rural Health Information Center provides access to statistical and other Internet resources.

Ritecode.com  — Medical Coding Message board available free to anyone wishing to ask medical coding questions concerning ICD-9, CPT, HCPCS, Medicare Part B or any other aspect of running a practice.

Toolbox for Managers & Administrators — A comprehensive listing of Internet links for healthcare administrators.

See also the specialty sites for specialty specific guidelines and outcomes information.

Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care — Information on becoming accredited with AAAHC.

Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) — Includes the practice guidelines this agency has developed and an index to other guidelines in the

National Guideline Clearinghouse . It was the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR)

American Society for Quality — Topics covered in this Web site include process improvement, teamwork, and quality-related standards. Materials are not healthcare specific.

American Productivity & Quality Center — The center provides resources related to customer satisfaction, productivity, and quality management. Included is the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse with articles, publications, and research studies.

Brown-Spath & Associates, Online Source for Healthcare Quality — Catalog lists resources related to health care quality, outcomes, clinical pathways,etc. Library contains links to articles and Internet resources on the same topics.

Center for Outcomes Research — Current outcomes research projects from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center

Foresighted Practice Guidelines — Information about foresighted practice guidelines as well as the complete guidelines.

HealthSafetyInfo.com — Includes government and JCAHO resources, how to tips, and news related to healthcare safety issues.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement — IHI offers resources and services to help health care organizations make dramatic and long-lasting improvements that enhance clinical outcomes and reduce costs.

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations — Information about accreditation, standards, and performance measurement. Includes article abstracts.

Medical Outcomes Trust — Provides information on outcomes tools, courses and links to other sites.

Models of Care — "Models of Care helps nurses and other health care professionals compare their organizations' disease and care management programs to best practices implemented by highly respected health plans, systems, providers, and purchasers."

National Association for Healthcare Quality — The resource center offers materials on quality standards, benchmarking, performance/ outcomes, and practice guidelines. Site also includes information on certification, education, publications, and government relations.

National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA) — Information on NCQA's primary managed care quality improvement activities in accreditation and the HEDIS performance measurement set. Ability to search individual plan accreditation status.

National Forum for Healthcare Quality Measurement and Reporting — A not-for-profit membership organization created to develop and implement a national strategy for health care quality measurement and reporting.

National Guideline Clearinghouse — A comprehensive database for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. Sponsored by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR)

National Patient Safety Foundation — The mission of the NPSF is to improve patient safety in the delivery of health care. Sponsored by the AMA.

Radiology Society of North America (RSNA) — Catalog of learning resources. Links to practice guidelines and other radiology resources.

RAND, including RAND Health Sciences Program — Information on products and research, including SF-36 Health Survey.

Solucient — Lists publications and source databases. Provides statistical resources for benchmarking, best practices, outcomes, cost management, etc. Includes a list of top 100 hospitals.

MGMA Specialty Issues Discussion Forum — An interactive bulletin board dedicated to discussion of specific types of practice or issues pertinent to a single specialty.

Specialty societies

American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology

American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology

American Academy of Dermatology

American Academy of Family Physicians

American Academy of Ophthalmology

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons

American Academy of Pediatrics

American College of Cardiology

American College of Emergency Physicians

American College of Gastroenterology

American College of Physicians

American College of Surgeons

American Geriatrics Society

American Psychiatric Association

American Society of Anesthesiologists

American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons

American Urological Association

Association of Community Cancer Centers

Emergency Medicine & Primary Care Home Page

Obstetrics and gynecology

American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists

OBGYNet

Radiology and laboratories

American College of Radiology

American Healthcare Radiology Administrators

American Pathology Foundation — "Dedicated to quality management for pathologists."

College of American Pathologists

Lab Explorer is an all-purpose Web site for laboratory staff. It brings together multiple resources for the integration of laboratory medicine, including vendors, organizations, educators, students and consultants.

National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards — Standards, guidelines, and documents describing laboratory procedures, benchmarks, reference methods, and evaluation protocols.

Radiology Society of North America (RSNA)

Telemedicine Information Exchange, Telemedicine Research Center — Information on telemedicine projects and research, funding sources, conferences, legal and ethical issues, products and services and bibliography with abstracts.

The following Internet sites were recommended by MGMA members and featured in a recent issue.


Find an excellent resource on primary care, general medical practice management and clinical information at The American Academy of Family Physicians Web site. There's a lot on this Web site, even for nonmembers of the Academy.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) provides forms, program memorandums, fee schedules and access to carrier manuals.Select the box that says 'professionals' or browse by topic, program or initiative."

The Internal Revenue Source Web site www.irs.gov is the source for federal income tax forms and publications.

View today's Dilbert cartoon, sign up to have it e-mailed to you daily or read past Dilberts. Even practice administrators have to have some fun.

On the Web site of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), read white papers on various aspects of HIPAA compliance developed by the Strategic National Implementation Process (SNIP). Select, 'SNIP Work Products.' The papers can be a bit technical, but they are very helpful and remarkably free of commercial bias.

Find the full text of the HIPAA privacy rule through the Office of the Civil Rights, Department of Health and Human Services. When it feels like the consultants are driving you crazy with advice about HIPAA, read the pertinent portions of the final modifications to the privacy rule from the Federal Register. The text can be downloaded and printed.

Part B News contains breaking news about Medicare Part B. Read up-to-date information about federal legislation and rules that affect Medicare providers, especially those that accept Part B reimbursement.

You can sign up to receive monthly notices of open-door conference calls conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). These monthly and bimonthly open-door forums focus on issues specific to Medicare and Medicaid. Senior-level CMS officials and CMS regional administrators co-chair each forum. You can also read what was said at past forums by topic.

National Public Radio has text and audio files of recent news stories. Some of the stories are expanded on the Web site.