News 5/17/17

Top News

CMS will dole out up to $30 million to medical societies, professional associations, and research organizations that want to help develop MACRA quality measures. In announcing the funding opportunity, CMS emphasized that, “[C]ollaboration and support for these entities in measure development will assist CMS in addressing such essential topics as clinician engagement, burden reduction, consumer informed decisions, critical measure gaps, shared care and payment accountability quality measure alignment, and efficient data collection.” Applications are due September 30. Funding for the 2018 fiscal year will be awarded in November.

Webinars

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

Check out the recording of Sensato CEO John Gomez’s WannaCry Threat Intelligence Briefing. It’s a great resource if you’re a little fuzzy on what WannaCry is/was, how it impacted companies across the globe, and what healthcare entities in the US can expect in terms of continued cybersecurity threats.

I tweeted along so as to compile a quick-reference recap.

Announcements and Implementations

Compass Health Network (MO) signs a 10-year agreement with Netsmart for its behavioral health EHR. The nonprofit provides primary and mental health care, and dental and substance abuse services via its Pathways Community Health network of facilities.

Premise Health will implement Epic at its 500-plus worksite health centers over the next two years.

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.

People

OptimizeRx names director and former CEO Gus Halas chairman of the board.

CareCloud hires Shari VanLoo (Simpplr) as CFO.

Telemedicine

The California Telehealth Network will join the Portland-based OCHIN family of companies. CTN, which operates the California Telehealth Resource Center, helps to bring telemedicine capabilities to providers in rural and underserved part of the state. OCHIN seems to have evolved from a REC into a national health IT consulting company with a growing network of partners.

Government and Politics

CMS announces that practices in Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and the Greater Buffalo region of New York are now eligible to participate in the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus program, which aims to help PCPs with value-based payment reform and care delivery. Interested physicians must apply to round two of the program by July 13. Nearly 3,000 practices in 14 regions signed up to participate in the first round.

Other

Federal prosecutors charge a former Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates (NC) employee after the practice discovered last fall she had been selling patient information to an identity thief for $10 apiece. The thief was sentenced last week to over seven years in jail for his attempts to open and use credit cards to the tune of $250,000.

Pennsylvania Dept. of Health officials deem the state’s PDMP a success after its first six months. Eighty-five thousand physicians and pharmacists have registered with and are using the program to monitor doctor-shopping for opioid prescriptions. Such shopping and prescriptions have dramatically decreased: The number of patients who have shopped for 10 or more doctors or pharmacists in a three-month period for opioids has been reduced by 94 percent.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Designing with Patient & Provider EHR Workflow in Mind (AdvancedMD)
• Piedmont success story: A framework for quick-win, value-based care initiatives [3-min. video] (Nordic)
• Do You Have a “Culture of Safety” in Your Ambulatory Setting? (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 5/16/17

Top News

Occupational healthcare provider US HealthWorks launches telemedicine services for self-pay urgent care patients and workers’ compensation patients in select states. The Dignity Health subsidiary, which has developed a companion telemedicine app, will expand virtual consult capabilities to additional states later this year. The Valencia, CA-based company treats over 14,000 patients on a daily basis across the country.

Webinars

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

Announcements and Implementations

Dallas-based Bridge Patient Portal will work with League City, TX-based MD EMR Systems to develop an interface between its portal and GE Centricity software. The decision to work together comes after a trial run with Westmed Medical Group (NY) last fall.

Bayview Physicians Group (VA) will add Appriss Health’s NarxCare prescription drug data aggregation and analytics tool to its homegrown EHR thanks to a $3.1 million statewide grant announced earlier this year by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. State PDMP Director Ralph Orr anticipates seeing an uptick in PDMP data access, usability, and performance for Virginia’s 18,000 prescribers and 400 pharmacies by the end of the year.

Emergency medicine practice Emergi-Trust (TN) renews its RCM and PM agreement with Zotec Partners.

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

People

Clinical studies company Elligo Health Research hires Rebecca Kush (Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium) as scientific innovation officer. The company uses EHR data to pinpoint patients that may benefit from clinical research studies, and then provides physicians with the necessary resources to conduct those studies in their own practices.

Government and Politics

CMS will host a webinar on May 22 covering the participation criteria used to determine inclusion in MIPS and APMs. Physicians who have questions about status letters sent earlier this month and the new MIPS status lookup tool are encouraged to tune in.

Other

The New Mexico Health Information Collaborative and PHIX (fka the Paso del Norte HIE) consider a data-sharing partnership that the regional HIEs hope will increase interoperability between participants in southern New Mexico and west Texas.

AAFP members lay out their fairly high-level vision for health IT over the next 10 years, emphasizing its role in a concept they call “Precision Population Health Management.” PPHM would utilize health IT to enable patients and their caregivers to better understand their health, predictors of deterioration, and the impact social and environmental factors have on clinical outcomes.

“Primary care would be equipped to manage and interact with data from the community and individuals to perform the health monitoring and to establish interventions at the community and individual levels,” the members write. “The practice would join with community resources and individuals to effect improvements in the health of the population; we call these activities joining tactics. Use of technology will be frictionless to the physician and other health care professionals, and will support them in their work and be enjoyable to use.”

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 5/15/17

Top News

Membership-based primary care company One Medical will open its first office in Seattle this week. The technology-heavy chain of practices, launched by founder and Seattle native Tom Lee, MD will open another location in Bellevue, WA this summer. One Medical already has locations in seven metropolitan areas, and has raised nearly $182 million in the 10 years since it launched. It acquired personal nutrition coaching company Rise early last year.

Webinars

May 16 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “WannaCry Threat Intelligence Briefing.” Sponsored by HIStalk. Sensato CEO and cybersecurity researcher John Gomez will provide an in-depth analysis of the current state of WannaCry as well as a technical review of how it operates and possible go-forward cybersecurity impacts. John will also present technical and regulatory counter-measures you should consider, specific to healthcare organizations.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

New York City-based HealthReveal finalizes its Series A funding round of $11.3 million with an additional investment by Northwell Ventures – the investment arm of New York-based Northwell Health system. The company will use the financing, led by GE Ventures, to further develop its chronic disease detection and management technology.

Vivid Vision raises $2.2 million in a seed round led by SoftTech VC. The San Francisco-based startup has developed a VR-based prescription therapy for treating vision disorders like lazy eye that can be used in a physician’s office or at home.

Telemedicine

Piedmont Health Services expands its use of RelyMD’s telemedicine services to all 10 of its locations in North Carolina. The community health organization implemented it in a trial-run capacity at its Scott Community Health Center last December.

People

Catherine McKnight joins RCM and IT services company Access Healthcare as general counsel.

Former AMA president Robert Wah, MD (DXC Technology) joins Higi’s Board of Directors. I interviewed Wah as his presidential tenure at AMA was winding down in mid-2015.

Announcements and Implementations

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

• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the Ohio Association of Health Plans Annual Convention May 16-17 in Columbus.
• GE Healthcare will supply over 200 Egyptian hospitals with 700 units of its advanced healthcare technologies.
• Healthwise will exhibit at the Cerner Collaboration Forum May 16-18 in Kansas City, MO.

Blog Posts

• Committing to our communities, a Nordic consultant’s viewpoint (Nordic)
• What to Expect from MACRA: The Early Years (PerfectServe)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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Contact us online.
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News 5/10/17

Top News

Boca Raton, FL-based Modernizing Medicine announces a $231 million investment from private equity firm Warburg Pincus. The specialty-specific EHR vendor has raised $322 million and acquired two companies – GMed and Aesyntix- since opening its doors in 2010. It anticipates using the latest round of funding to ramp up efforts around prior authorization automation, eCommerce platform development, data exchange and reconciliation, and telemedicine. Fred Hassan and Amr Kronfol, both of Warburg Pincus, will join the company’s board.

Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services.

Announcements and Implementations

DocsInk adds CCM-friendly features to its charge capture services.

Integra Connect offers cloud-based RCM services for large urology and oncology practices looking to transition from fee-for-service to APMs.

TCI develops the SuperCoder Smart Assistant browser extension, giving coders the ability to look up codes without exiting whatever program they’re working in.

California Highlands and Recovery Centers of America (PA) select medication management and communications technology from Compliance Meds Technologies.

People

Michael Lovett (NextGen Healthcare) joins Formativ Health as chief commercial officer. It is the practice management services company’s third executive hire in the last two months.

Government and Politics

The Senate confirms Scott Gottlieb, MD as FDA commissioner. The cancer survivor was quick to respond to congratulations from NIH Director Francis Collins, tweeting that he’s looking forward to working with the NIH to “advance science in pursuit of medical progress and public health promotion.”

Research and Innovation

Findings from MGMA’s annual physician compensation and productivity survey highlight that pesky wage gap we’ve all heard so much about: Male PCPs earn 17-percent more than their female counterparts, while male specialists earn 37 percent more than women working in the same areas.

Other

The local paper covers OptumHealth’s impending acquisition of Reliant Medical Group, a Massachusetts-based group that has been independent since it opened for business in 1929. RMG CEO Tarek Elsawy attributes the decision – supported by the group’s 230 physicians – as a step in the right direction when it comes to remaining competitive. He explained that, “Reliant expects to bolster its ability to grow and expand, modernize many of its clinical facilities, have access to advanced data analytics capabilities, and attract top medical talent to its practices.”

Authorities arrest Public New Service reporter Dan Heyman for “willful disruption of governmental processes” after repeatedly asking HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD about pre-existing conditions under the AHCA, and purportedly doing so in breach of Secret Service proximity protocols. The incident occurred during Price’s visit to the West Virginia State Capitol to learn more about the state’s opioid crisis.

Sponsor Updates

• NVoq will exhibit at the MGMA NE conference May 10-12 in North Falmouth, MA.

Blog Posts

• Consultants as Mentors? (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 5/9/17

Top News

Healthcare CRM/care coordination company Updox raises $12.7 million in a Series B round led by TT Capital Partners. The company has raised $15.2 million since launching in 2008. CEO Michael Morgan joined Updox in 2012 after stints with Netsmart and ProductManage.

Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services.

Announcements and Implementations

Compulink develops an EHR for OB/GYNs that includes PM, RCM, and telemedicine capabilities.

CORHIO will add FHIR-based API access o its HIE services next month. The move is part of a broader interoperability and data aggregation effort that will soon see the Colorado-based organization gather the housing, transportation, and financial data of patients.

Drchrono adds new OB/GYN-specific flow sheets and medical forms to its EHR.

Great Falls Clinic (MT) selects RCM software and services from MTBC. The clinic already uses MTBC subsidiary MediGain Practice Management’s RCM support services.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Boston-based Polaris Partners launches a $435 million fund that it will use to invest in healthcare, technology, and biotech companies. Current health IT investments include managed primary care services company Iora Health, patient intake vendor Phreesia, and telemedicine startup First Opinion.

People

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists elects Jonathan Leffert, MD (North Texas Endocrine Center) president.

Brent Asplin, MD (Mercy Health) joins VillageMD as COO.

Telemedicine

The ClearHealth Quality Institute takes over management of the American Telemedicine Association’s accreditation program. ATA will help CHQI draft and update standards associated with the program, which will be rebranded as the Telemedicine Accreditation Program. American Well, Avera, Care Simple, Doctor on Demand, HealthLinkNow, MDLive, United Concierge Medicine are the only vendors thus far to take advantage of the program.

Research and Innovation

Scientists at the University of Illinois and the Carle Foundation Hospital’s Research Institute design a digital doctor capable of explaining lab tests to patients via a provider’s portal. Developed for adults with low levels of health literacy in mind, the “computer agent” has been tested on seniors in two pilot studies; both of which found no preference for the agent’s “natural-sounding” or computer-generated voice. Next steps will include applying for grant money and developing a more robust pilot study.

Other

I’m labeling this a hipster data breach: Thieves use fishing lure, poles, and lines to steal mail from a box outside of a post office in Palm Beach County, FL. Postal officials are now encouraging patrons to drop off mail inside the building. One post office employee has already been arrested for stealing checks and gift cards from a similar mailbox.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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