The Evils of CPT®

Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) codes are 5 digit codes for billing procedures performed by physicians in the United States.  The use of these codes is mandated by all insurers and the whole CPT® coding system forms Level I of the CMS (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid) Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) code set.  The system is… Continue reading The Evils of CPT®

The Death of SuperSluggo

SuperSluggo, my main computing machine (a self-built ATX monster tower with a Asus Striker 2 Formula motherboard running Ubuntu 12.04) died yesterday.  As is often the way with computers, it was fine the night before, but when I tried to switch it on yesterday there was no response.  No beeps, no lights, nothing.  SCD —… Continue reading The Death of SuperSluggo

Cyber Cold War Update

Just a brief update on the security issues at my website mentioned in the last post. As those of you smarter than I am on the mechanisms of these php-injection attacks probably recognized, the measures I took in the last post were not the end of the story. Sure enough, despite thinking that I had… Continue reading Cyber Cold War Update

More Attacks On EP Studios!

The battle is still on.  My website went offline unexpectedly this week.  Thanks to the backup guys at Vaultpress who notified me about it.  The site was giving error code 500: “Internal Server Error.”  Oops.  Checking the WordPress files, I found that nearly every php file had this as its first line (enclosed in php… Continue reading More Attacks On EP Studios!

EPIC Bullying

I got word through my medical director at work today that the hospital administrators had been contacted by the EPIC electronic health record software company about this post, and demanded that the screenshots of the EPIC user interface be taken down.  Offsetting my pride that someone had actually noticed and read my blog was the… Continue reading EPIC Bullying

Attacked!

Saturday morning I was in the ideal programming groove.  I got up early, grabbed a coffee from Panera’s, and faced the screen of my main computer, SuperSluggo, with its Ubuntu desktop and a nice wallpaper showing a snowy scene.  I had cleaned the condo (oops, I mean EP Studios Eastern HQ) a few days before. … Continue reading Attacked!

From Android to iOS: User Interface Issues

As my project to migrate EP Mobile from Android to iOS progresses, there might be some of you who are interested in some of the obstacles that I have had to deal with.  These  obstacles are numerous and non-trivial.  The programming languages (Java vs Objective-C) are completely different.  The programming IDEs (Eclipse vs Xcode) are… Continue reading From Android to iOS: User Interface Issues

Computerized Medical Documentation: Disappointing So Far

It’s usually some minor irritation that gets me into blog-writing mode, much as a grain of sand forces an oyster to produce a pearl.  Judging by the dearth of blogs I have written recently, one might assume that my life has been remarkably free of irritation lately.  That’s not the case.  I’ve just been too… Continue reading Computerized Medical Documentation: Disappointing So Far