News 5/24/17

Top News

Competition for primary care patients heats up in Seattle as Portland, OR-based ZoomCare opens two new clinics in the metro area. The tech-friendly managed primary care company will open another three later this year. Notice of the new facilities comes amidst Seattle-based direct primary care company Qliance Medical Management’s closure and One Medical’s opening of its first clinic in the area. ZoomCare’s insurance arm, Zoom Health, closed last month amidst financial instability and concurrent investigation by state health insurance officials.

Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services, including turn-key production and promotion.

Announcements and Implementations

Femwell Group Health will offer HealthGrid’s patient engagement platform including mobile check-in, automated appointment reminders, and population health management to the physician practices it managers in South Florida.

SocialClime enhances its Web-based patient feedback and engagement tools with RosettaHealth’s data standardization technology.

People

ClearHealth Quality Institute is looking for volunteers to serve on its Board of Directors and new Telemedicine Standards Committee. The Institute is in the process of taking over the American Telemedicine Association’s accreditation program.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Nomad Health launches its online, broker-free clinical work-finding tool in California. Both states are experiencing physician shortages: California is experiencing a dearth of PCPs while 35 counties in Texas are facing a doctor desert. The New York City-based company launched in 2015 and has raised $4 million.

Dermatology-focused PM company Dermatologists of Central States receives an undisclosed amount of funding from Sheridan Capital Partners. DoCS provides non-clinical resources to dermatology practices in Ohio through partner practice Dermatologists of Southwest Ohio.

Government and Politics

Former Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) joins CMS as head of the HHS regional office in Atlanta. Ellmers, who is also a nurse, made a name for herself in health IT circles with the introduction of several pieces of legislation aimed at curtailing the scope of Meaningful Use.

Industry insiders weigh in on President Trump’s budget proposal and its implications for healthcare-related departments and initiatives.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD focuses his first official blog post on ways in which the agency can fight the opioid epidemic. Gottlieb outlines high-level plans for a new Opioid Policy Steering Committee, which will seek to, among other things, determine whether the mandated education of healthcare professionals on appropriate prescribing recommendations will make a dent in addiction levels. He adds that he and the steering committee will seek input from stakeholders to determine next best steps.

Sponsor Updates

• State of the Union Address (AdvancedMD)
• Healthcare On-Demand: An Experience with Epic MyChart (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 5/23/17

Top News

President Trump releases his proposed 2018 budget a day after HHS posts its 104-page portion online – a move some media outlets have construed as an accident. HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD says the budget is “focused on making strategic investments to protect the health and well-being of all Americans. Our budget focuses resources on direct health services and patient-centered care. It also ensures that important programs like Medicaid serve our most vulnerable citizens – the people such programs are intended to help.”

Impacts to HHS would include sharp cuts to ONC, among other departments and services. I haven’t yet had a chance to read through the entire document. For those in need of a high-level overview, check out Federal News Radio’s breakdown by agency. I’d love to hear from readers as to how they feel this fiscal spending will impact physician practices. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services, including turn-key production and promotion.

Announcements and Implementations

Behavioral health EHR vendor ClinicTracker adds an automated collections interface from TSI, giving users the ability to forward delinquent patient accounts to TSI for expedited collections.

Harbin Clinic (GA) will add Meridian Medical Management’s PrecisionBI analytics engine to its Athenahealth EHR and PM platform. With 20 locations and 220 providers, the clinic is Georgia’s largest physician-owned multispecialty clinic.

Prompted by its EHR vendor, EClinicalWorks, Indiana-based FQHC HealthNet (IN) enlists the services of Array Networks to bolster its disaster recovery and virtualization strategies. The practice, which has 16 locations across greater Indianapolis, won a HIMSS Davies Award in 2015 for improving pediatric care with its EHR resources.

People

The Iowa Osteopathic Medical Association elects Joel Baker, DO president.

Telemedicine

Subscription telemedicine company Alvin Healthcare partners with prepaid processing company Epay to make its services available at retail locations like Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores. The company, which offers medical consults via Teladoc and EDocAmerica through its Hello Alvin brand, supplies its annual fee-based service through prepaid cards similar to gift cards.

School nurses are not happy about the introduction of HippoMD telemedicine services at schools within the Sacramento City Unified School District. Twenty-six of the system’s 27 nurses signed a three-page letter of protest listing their objections to the expansion and use of teachers (non-medical personnel) to assist with the virtual visits. Also included in their list of grievances is the fact that teachers receive a $500 classroom supplies bonus for gaining student consent to the service.

Research and Innovation

An AAFP-sponsored survey of over 22,000 adults finds 86 percent of respondents feel primary care leads to healthier patients, higher-quality care, and lower costs. A similar number of respondents believe physicians should practice value-based care rather than fee-for-service, and that care should be affordable. Nearly 90 percent believe a patient-physician relationship is important – a stat that should give telemedicine vendors pause regarding the ways in which they market their services directly to consumers, and to practices looking to meet their patients where they already are – online.

And speaking of affordable healthcare, the results of a year-long study of employees at two large companies don’t bode well for the role healthcare price transparency tools will eventually play in helping American consumers become savvier cost-conscious patients. Just 11 percent of participating families used such a tool at least three times, and just 1 percent used it at least once – most being in the young, high-income, high-deductible bracket. The study’s authors conclude that employers and payers should target marketing of these tools to groups with lower Internet use rates, particularly those who may also have lower levels of health literacy. I wonder if CMS has tried tying in the marketing of price transparency tools to Medicare services.

Other

And I thought the phrase “cloud computing” was soooo 2013: American Thoroughbred Cloud Computing wins the Preakness Stakes – the second leg of the Triple Crown – unexpectedly beating out top contenders Always Dreaming and Classic Empire. His owners, hedge fund managers Seth Klarman and William Lawrence, chose his name “based upon their pattern of using terms from the finance industry to name their horses,” according to Wikipedia. Other examples include Takeover Target and Currency Swap. (Diehard HIStalk fans may remember that “cloud” won a HISsies award in 2013 in the Most Overrated Technology category.)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 5/22/17

Top News

Seattle-based direct primary care provider Qliance Medical Management shuts down six of its primary care clinics without giving patients or employees notice of any kind. The company, which had planned a more organized closure, attributes the abruptness to an improper withdrawal of $200,000 made by one of its lenders, which cited Qliance’s default and a presumably related investigation of co-founder and CEO Erika Bliss as the reason for its seizure of funds. The company opened for business as BlissMD in 2006 with backing from Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, and game show host Drew Carey (who also happens to own the Seattle Sounders soccer team.) I assume One Medical, which opened its first location in Seattle last week, will welcome Qliance’s 13,000 patients with open arms.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

VoiceNation launches an answering service division for healthcare professionals. Director of Operations Eric Schurke will head up the new business line.

New York City-based secure text messaging startup OhMD joins Athenahealth’s More Disruption Please program.

Announcements and Implementations

MTBC releases an updated version of its portal app for patients with new features that include appointment scheduling, online check-in, and secure messaging.

Monroe Urgent Care (OH) implements Practice Velocity’s VelociDoc EHR.

People

James Aylward (PatientPoint) joins physician referral management IT vendor Preferral as CEO.

BluePrint Healthcare IT’s Care Navigator business promotes Trish Ambrosio, RN to VP of product and care management, and hires Jodi Goudreau (Big White Wall) as platform adoption and market management director.

Government and Politics

CMS publishes a Technical Resource Guide to help providers participating in the Quality Payment Program locate assistance and resources in their respective regions.

Iowa State Pharmacy Board Director Andrew Funk previews the state’s plans to upgrade its PDMP so that it is easier to use – a move he hopes will encourage more prescribers to register with the program. Just 42 percent of physicians have registered with the PDMP since it launched in 2009. “The limitations of the current system, especially the difficulty navigating the program and the lack of integration with (EHRs), have led many prescribers who initially tried to utilize the PMP to not continue doing so and led many to not start in the first place,” says Dennis Tibben, director of government affairs for the Iowa Medical Society. “While we’ll never get to 100 percent prescriber registration, once some of these upgrades are made to make the system more functional and integrated, and make the records more complete, I expect utilization will grow at a more rapid pace.”

Telemedicine

San Francisco-based Lemonaid Health raises $11 million in a Series A round led by Novartis Venture Fund and Hikma Ventures. The company differentiates itself from its numerous mom-and-pop telemedicine competitors with an online prescription delivery service courtesy of Phil Inc.

Other

A twisted sense of benevolence: This media outlet highlights the damage the ransomware attacker known as The Dark Overlord is doing to clinics. In one particularly heinous situation, the TDO launched an attack against Cancer Services of East Central Indiana – Little Red Door, an Indiana-based nonprofit that found its eight computers encrypted with malicious code just as a board meeting was about to begin. The clinic opted not to pay the $43,000 ransom, despite TDO’s reasoning that “news of the breach would generate sympathy for the center, and donations would increase beyond what the ransom would cost.”

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 5/21/17

Akron Children’s Hospital (OH) promotes Kristene Grayem to the new position of VP of population health management.

Craig Smith (Applied Health Analytics) returns to Aegis Health Group as chief revenue officer.

Kevin Masci (Prime Therapeutics) joins FDS as VP of business development and population health.

The local business paper highlights the emphasis Cerner is increasingly placing on technology to connect physical and behavioral health providers, starting with those in their own backyard. “You can’t achieve population health management unless you’re considering all parts of a person,” says Dr. William Stadler, Cerner’s director of behavioral health. “[Truman Medical Center and North Kansas City Hospital] might know of one another, but they don’t necessarily have the referral management processes in place, or affiliations, to manage high-risk populations receiving services at both. We want to bring together community providers.”

Henry Schein Medical Systems will add ReportingMD’s population health management app and reporting tool to its MicroMD EHR and PM software.

Health IT company AssureCare and FQHC-focused population health management business Centerprise will work together to provide care coordination and management software and services to FQHCs.

Community Care Cooperative will use Evolent Health’s population health management technology and IT services as part of its FQHC ACO efforts in Massachusetts. The organizations will place special emphasis on implementing technology to integrate social determinants of health and behavioral health services with primary care for Medicaid patients.

Sponsor Updates

• Medicity will exhibit at the Texas Regional HIMSS Conference May 25 in San Antonio.
• Healthwise will exhibit at the Cognizant Healthcare Conference May 21-24 in San Antonio.
• Intelligent Medical Objects will exhibit at the Advanced Healthcare Analytics Summit May 24-25 in Boston.
• Health Professional Radio features Medicomp Systems CEO Dave Lareau.

Blog Posts

• PIMSY + SayIt (Nvoq)
• Nurses balance it all. (PerfectServe)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 5/18/17

Top News

Athenahealth launches MDP Labs, an incubator-like effort the company hopes will amp up its MDP Marketplace. The company will offer up to 200 seats to companies of all stages and sizes at its San Francisco office, affording them mentorship and community, partnerships and funding opportunities, and access to the company’s end users. Applications are due July 7. The program will kick off in August.

In other Athenahealth news, the local business paper points out that Elliott Management’s recently disclosed 9.2-percent stake in the company could signal a future sale or cost-cutting measures. Described as an “aggressive activist investment firm that manages more than $32 billion in capital,” Elliott Management’s interest in Athenahealth caused a 17-percent increase in the price of its stock earlier today. Company spokesperson Holly Spring says Athenahealth is looking forward to hearing the investment firm’s views on driving future growth, adding, “We have great confidence in the company and where we are headed.”

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services.

Announcements and Implementations

TSI Healthcare, a Chapel Hill, NC-based consulting firm specializing in NextGen PM and EHR products, will give the Surescripts National Record Locator Service a trial run. Launched last year, the service uses prescription data as part of its retrieval service, which thus far includes over 230 million records and over 4 billion physician-patient interactions. Aprima Medical Software, Greenway Health, and EClinicalWorks are among a handful of EHR vendors that have already signed on to the NRLS network.

People

Scott Mumford (IBM) joins RCM technology and services company Gaffey Healthcare as CIO.

Telemedicine

San Diego-based TealNet Mobile Medical Office receives an undisclosed amount of funding from TealTech Capital. The startup has developed a Web-based house call and telemedicine service for urgent care.

Other

The State of Maine develops a text-based service for substance abuse counseling and resources. The effort piggybacks off the success of a similar service for pregnant women and new mothers that launched last year. “Unfortunately, there is still stigma around substance use disorder in today’s society, even though most people are affected by it either directly or indirectly, explains Christopher Pezzullo, state health officer for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “That stigma prohibits people from reaching out for help and pushes them further away from a path to successful recovery. The texting capability through 2-1-1 offers individuals the feeling of a safer and more anonymous experience when seeking guidance on recovery options.”

Chicago podiatrist Yev Gray will spend seven-and-a-half years in jail and will pay a $7 million fine after pleading guilty to defrauding Medicare out of $6 million. Health IT played a part in the Aggeus Healthcare owner’s scheme: He created an EHR that automatically created “canned language” in patient medical records that would ensure Medicare payment for procedures that wouldn’t normally have been covered. Gray and his wife, who was also charged, no doubt used some of those Medicare dollars to fund the home profiled by Chicago magazine several years ago.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.