News 5/31/16

Top News

Caving to stakeholder complaints (including admonition from former National Coordinator turned Aledade CEO Farzad Mostashari, MD), CMS opens up the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus program to 1,500 eligible primary care practices enrolled in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.

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Webinars

 

June 28 (Tuesday) 2:00 ET. “Your Call Is Very Important.” Sponsored by West Healthcare Practice. Presenters: Cyndy Orrys, contact center director, Henry Ford Health System; Brian Cooper, SVP, West Interactive. The contact center is a key hub of patient engagement and a strategic lever for driving competitive advantage. Cyndy will share how her organization’s call center is using technologies and approaches that create effortless patient experiences in connecting them to the right information or resource. Brian will describe five key characteristics of a modern call center and suggest how to get started.

Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Aprima medical software reseller DAS Health (fka Doctors Administrative Solutions) acquires Las Vegas-based healthcare IT services firm Falcon Healthcare Systems for an undisclosed sum. FHS CEO Russell Suzuki will join DAS as vice president of information services. DAS will maintain its Tampa, FL headquarters and add a regional office in Las Vegas. The company seems to be on a bit of a buying spree, having acquired ConXit Technology Group, Jackson Key Practice Solutions, and Spectra Healthcare’s RCM business within the last eight months.

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People

Jean Hansen (Kansas City Internal Medicine) joins DataFile as COO.

The American Telemedicine Association elects Grant Chamberlain (Ziegler) to its Board of Directors.

Former CMS administrator and FDA commissioner Mark McClellan, MD (Duke University) joins American Well’s advisory board.

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Announcements and Implementations

Amazing Charts offers RCM services from Physicians Group Management Billing.

The Diary develops a CareKit-based chronic condition management app featuring care plan and prescription reminders; as well as the ability to dictate and share symptoms and vitals. The company plans to launch a corresponding data-sharing app for providers in the near future.

DirectTrust develops the Partnership for Patients Program, giving members secure-messaging access to its network of 58,000 healthcare organizations and 1.2 million email addresses.

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Government and Politics

Marin County, CA officials authorize the use of nearly $775,000 to build a data hub that will connect Marin Community Clinics, Coastal Health Alliance, Marin City Health and Wellness Center, Ritter Center, the county’s health clinics — including behavioral health — and Emergency Medical Services, all of which operate separate EHRs. County supervisors hope that the hub, which will take two years to build, will eventually connect to local hospitals.

ONC’s annual meeting kicks off with a half day of sessions, including a tête-à-tête between HHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Health and National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD and former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who wasn’t afraid to drop a little humor into their conversation about consumer-friendly health data.

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Research and Innovation

MGMA’s annual compensation survey finds that annual PCP salaries now surpass $250,000, a 4.3 percent rise from 2014 that the association attributes to the increasing prevalence of value-based care models. PCP salaries have increased 18 percent over the last five years and still lag far below that of their specialist counterparts, who earned an average $425,509 in 2015.

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Sponsor Updates

• Intelligent Medical Objects and Leidos Health will exhibit at the International MUSE 2016 conference May 31-June 2 in Orlando.
• Noel Allender (Jacobus Consulting) joins Leidos Health as Epic managing director.

Blog Posts

• Community Connect versus EpicCare Link: Nordic’s take (Nordic)
• Speech Recognition does much more than convert speech to text. (NVoq)
• Aprima Earns Fundamental Building Block for Patient-Centered Medical Homes (Aprima)
• Choosing the Right Real-time Locating System (Versus Technology)

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Contacts

Jennifer,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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