CCH Enhances Internet Research Network, News On The Web For Healthcare Professionals

(RIVERWOODS, ILL., October 18, 2000) – CCH INCORPORATED (CCH) is offering healthcare professionals free, practical news and information over the web as well as an enhanced CCH Internet^SM Research NetWorkä for health law at http://health.cch.com. The web site, designed to keep health professionals current with health law developments, also showcases CCH products in the field of health law and provides a link to the CCH Online Store for subscription services, books and Internet products.

"We want http://health.cch.com to be a place where people can drop in and learn something useful in just a minute or two," said Chuck Gouge, director of marketing, CCH Health and Human Resources. "We also want to make it easy for healthcare professionals to sample the quality information and valuable services, whether it’s a free trial of our CCH Internet Research NetWork, a demonstration of our ComplianceEdge e-learning program or just a simple checklist that they can print out and use on the job."

Directly on http://health.cch.com, users can access a wide range of news and practical information for free, and scan across several health-related fields - Medicare and Medicaid, healthcare compliance, food, drug and medical device regulation and home health - or they can narrow that range to a single field of interest.

They can also subscribe to free weekly newsletters that are distributed by e-mail and the Internet. FDA Update, Medicare and Medicaid Update and Part B Insider Update are currently available; newsletters for home health care and health care compliance will be available in November. Subscribers will receive a weekly list of headlines via e-mail, with links to summaries of new developments on the net. The newsletters will be especially useful to CCH Internet Research NetWork subscribers, who can link from references in the summary stories to the full text of court decisions and other full-text documents.

Up-To-Date, News You Can Use

The content of the page is keyed to recent developments in health law and is designed to keep visitors informed, but not overwhelmed, with brief, to-the-point news stories and features.

A "News and Information" section lists headlines for recent news items, with links to in-depth coverage. Stories carry further links to CCH research products and other sources.

An "Online Tools and Decisions" section contains six features that keep users up-to-date and productive:

"Decisions and Developments" contains summaries, from CCH publications, of recent court decisions, legislation and administrative action. Subscribers to the CCH Internet Research NetWork can use links in the stories to open their research publications. Non-subscribers can link through for a 15-day free trial.

"Issues and Answers" are short, provocative discussions in a question-and-answer format on issues of current concern – such as "When is a discharge not a discharge?"

"Checklists" contain short, to-the-point listings of items crucial to practice, such as a health compliance checklist on the confidentiality of patient records.

"You Be The Judge" presents visitors with thought-provoking scenarios so they can compare their own analysis with that of CCH experts.

"Medicare Contact Numbers by State" gives the (usually toll-free) numbers for Medicare beneficiaries to call with questions about Medicare coverage through managed care organizations.

"Healthcare Resources Links" facilitates dozens of useful contacts over the Internet, putting users in contact with a wealth of links to professional organizations and government agencies with sites ranging from The Lancet to the Society for Clinical Coding.

Research Network Enhanced

Subscribers to the CCH Internet Research NetWork or the CCH Compliance Edge e-learning program can use http://health.cch.com as a launching pad for their research or training sessions. CCH Internet Research NetWork subscribers will now find a number of enhancements in this leading-edge system:

Subscribers can now start searches and enter citations on a Login Express toolbar to speed directly to their research topics.

In search results lists, search terms are now highlighted in context-making it easier for users to choose the most relevant documents.

A new button returns search options to the default settings with a single click.

Recent searches appear as hot links in the user’s "Path," making it possible to re-run an earlier search with a mouse click.

Researchers can also add comments to their "Path" – noting the relevance of a document, for example.

The user’s "My CCH" page now offers a quick way to return to the last document or search results list viewed during a session.

"This is part of an ongoing program in which we continue to make the CCH Internet Research NetWork responsive to the way that users say they like to work," said Gouge.

About CCH INCORPORATED

CCH INCORPORATED, headquartered in Riverwoods, Ill., was founded in 1913 and has served four generations of business professionals and their clients. The company produces more than 700 electronic and print products for the tax, legal, securities, insurance, human resources, health care and small business markets. CCH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer North America. The CCH web site can be accessed at www.cch.com. The CCH health law web site can be accessed at http://health.cch.com.

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