News 6/27/16

Top News

A hacker known as “thedarkoverlord” advertises 655,000 healthcare records on a dark Web marketplace, allegedly stolen from healthcare organizations in Missouri, Georgia, and the Central/Midwest. The hacker claims he conducted each breach via an unknown vulnerability in each organization’s remote desktop protocol, from which he kept going until he “got to the juicy machines running their electronic health systems” – at least one of which he claims is SRSsoft’s EHR. The data is being sold to nefarious dealers for between $100,000 and $411,000, though the hacker has also claimed he’s holding the information ransom for “a modest amount compared to the damage that will be caused to the organizations when I decide to publicly leak the victims.”

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. Be sure to ask for her “Summer Doldrums Special” that we always run through Labor Day and you’ll get a great deal

People

Helen Darling (National Quality Forum) joins the Teladoc Board of Directors.

Announcements and Implementations

Salt Lake City-based ManagementPlus, a part of The Eye Care Leaders Group, adds revenue cycle solutions to its line of health IT and consulting services for optometry practices.

Mi Doctor (TX) implements Redox’s API, enabling its Relaymed point-of-care test administration software to receive orders and post results directly into its EClinicalWorks EHR and PM systems. The integration is the latest in a list of new relationships for the API integration startup, which has up until now focused on hospital-centric systems.

Government and Politics

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announces that the city will leverage Zocdoc’s physician scheduling technology to help employees on its health plan access in-network physicians across all five boroughs. The partnership is part of the city’s WorkWell NYC initiative, which aims to help its 1.2 million employees, retirees, and dependents become and remain healthy.

A state-run physician ranking system comes under fire (again) for placing cost above quality, and culling cost assessments from sample sizes deemed too small to be statistically reliable. Developed by the Group Insurance Commission for state of Massachusetts employees, the $7 million system uses its rankings to place physicians in tiers – the higher the tier, the higher the co-pay. “There has been a fair amount of concern raised about tiering by our members for several years and the GIC method of tiering was particularly worrying based on the methodology they use,” said Dennis Dimitri, MD. “We shouldn’t apply flawed methodology and inadequate methodology and then have both physicians and patients suffer as a result of these inadequacies.”

CMS reports it has paid out $34.7 billion in Meaningful Use incentive payments as of last month, including over $9 billion for EPs. It’s worth noting that none of that went to new AMA President Andrew Gurman, MD who has been transparent about the fact that its more fiscally responsible for his solo practice to take the penalties than to invest in new technology.

Other

First it was tasty nail polish in Hong Kong, now its phone chargers in India. KFC has launched limited edition “Watt-A-Box” packages in Delhi and Mumbai to spice up its paper boxes, most of which are being given out via an online contest.

With his typical aplomb, Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush quells rumors he may one day run for the highest office in the land. “First of all, we need another Bush like I need a hole in my head,” he said. “I don’t want to be another Bush, but I do want to be politically active, I do want to provide air cover.” He also made it clear he won’t vote for Trump, adding that, “If he was a little bit less clinically narcissistic, I would vote for him.” I can’t help but think back to his appearance at HIStalkapalooza …

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 6/26/16

Kili Chivers (PointRight) joins recently rebranded I2I Population Health as chief growth officer.

New York City-based Fitango Health launches a new set of remote-monitoring and patient engagement technologies that include video, email, and text messaging; wearables integration; and compliance tools. The company added telemedicine capabilities to its population health management services last month.

Rite Aid subsidiary Health Dialog and H2 Wellness develop the Interact personal health portal for risk-bearing organizations looking to manage behavior change across patient populations. Rite Aid will roll it out to employees later this summer.

Knoxville, TN-based consulting firm Pershing Yoakley & Associates develops a set of population health management services to help providers better prepare for value-based care initiatives.

Aurora Health Care (WI) and StartUp Health seek innovations to integrate into a personalized population health platform that will provide targeted care to Aurora patients and the surrounding community. Digital health startups have until July 20 to apply. Selected companies will have access to StartUp Health Academy’s lifetime coaching program and Aurora’s internal commercialization, IT, and innovation teams. The platform will launch in early 2017.

C.L. Brumback Primary Care Clinics (FL) goes live with Forward Health Group’s PopulationManager and The Guideline Advantage.

CaseNet integrates Interpreta’s real-time clinical and genomics analytics into its TruCare care management software for public and private payers.

Sponsor Updates

• Leidos Health will exhibit at the HFMA ANI Conference June 26-29 in Las Vegas.

Blog Posts

• Relieving the data and analytics pressure: 3 Nordic solutions (Nordic)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 6/23/16

Top News

Aledade celebrates its second anniversary in the ACO formation business with a slew of announcements. It has partnered with PCPs to form new ACOs in Nevada/Utah, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia; and signed its first commercial contract, with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana. Physicians enrolled in its Louisiana-based ACO will work with patients via BCBS Louisiana’s Quality Blue Value Partnership program.

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. Be sure to ask for her “Summer Doldrums Special” that we always run through Labor Day and you’ll get a great deal.

Announcements and Implementations

Practice Fusion develops a predictive modeling program using de-identified EHR data to help physicians identify rare diseases. The program uses clinical decision support advisories in the EHR to alert physicians to a patient’s propensity for having a rare disease, and then offers resources including available testing to confirm or rule out a diagnosis.

People

Jim Boswell (Baptist Medical Group) joins IKS Health as executive vice president and managing partner, client advisory services.

Continuum Health Alliance names Don McDaniel (Sage Growth Partners) president and CEO, and Robert Haft (Morgan Noble) chairman of the board.

Government and Politics

ONC posts recordings of its annual meeting sessions.

HHS adds new members to its Health Information Technology Standards and Health Information Technology Policy Committees. Appointees include Aaron Miri (Imprivata), Rajesh Dash (Duke University School of Medicine), Kay Eron (Intel), Peter Johnson, Kyle Meadors (Drummond Group), Terrence O’Malley, MD (Massachusetts General Hospital), Andrey Ostrovsky, MD (Care at Hand), Wanmei Ou (Oracle), and Larry Wolf (Strategic Health Network).

Cue the healthcare and technology media hysterics: First, President Obama jokes about joining LinkedIn once his term is up. Next, he includes precision medicine in his list of potential future gigs. “… [T]he fact that now you can have your personal genome mapped for a thousand bucks instead of $100,000; and the potential for us to identify what your tendencies are, and to sculpt medicines that are uniquely effective for you. That’s just an example of something I can sit and listen and talk to folks for hours about.”

Telemedicine

Supplemental health benefits company Healthera offers organ donors free telemedicine and portal messaging services via HealthiestYou.

Following in Louisiana’s footsteps, Alaska Governor Bill Walker signs legislation no longer requiring telemedicine providers to be physically located within the state.

Other

A new report from security software company Kapersky Lab finds that ransomware attacks have increased at an alarming rate over the last two years. Nearly 720,000 people were ransomware victims between April 2015 and March 2016 – nearly 600,000 more than were hit the year before. While at-home users remain the object of most ransomware attacks, targeted attacks on corporate users have more than doubled.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 6/22/16

Top News

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Attorney General Loretta Lynch announce that 301 people have been arrested in a national crackdown on Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Sixty healthcare professionals – including 30 physicians – were taken in for falsely billing over $900 million for medically unnecessary services, or services that were never provided. The takedown is the largest in the nine-year history of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, exceeding last year’s 243 arrests accounting for $712 million.

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. Be sure to ask for her “Summer Doldrums Special” that we always run through Labor Day and you’ll get a great deal.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The Durham, NC-based Eye Care Leaders Group adds consulting services to its line of EHR and PM software solutions for ophthalmologists and optometrists.

People

Brian Dillon joins OptimizeRx as senior vice president of product and strategy.

Telemedicine

The Maryland Health Care Commission awards $115,000 to help fund telemedicine projects launching this month at private practices Gilchrist Greater Living and MedPeds. Gilchrist, a geriatric care practice, will use the funds to provide chronically ill patients with in-home telemedicine monitoring, while MedPeds will use the resources to launch around-the-clock telemedicine services. The programs will run through November 2017.

Louisiana lawmakers pass telemedicine-friendly legislation, no longer requiring physicians to conduct an initial in-person/in-state patient history or physical exam before engaging in a telemedicine encounter. The revised legislation also changes the state’s definition of telemedicine to “interactive audio” without video if care standards are similar to those of an in-person visit.

Government and Politics

If you build it, they will come: ONC proudly announces that its Mobile Health Apps Interactive Tool has been viewed 12,000 times since launching in April. The interactive tool, built in collaboration with the FTC, FDA, and OCR helps app developers answer questions related to federal legal requirements.

We may no longer see federal employees standing in long taxi queues at HIMSS. Rumor has it a bipartisan Government Travel Modernization Act is being proposed that will allow government workers to take advantage of Uber and other ride-sharing services. I guess it’s not all that surprising that bureaucracy favors more expensive, potentially slower modes of transportation over easy and cheaper access.

Other

Georgia public radio looks at the reasons behind physician burnout in the US, which has increased by 10 percent in the last five years. Family physicians in private practice are particularly feeling the squeeze thanks to increasing patient loads, declining reimbursements, burdensome payer paperwork, and, of course, EHRs. PCP Lisa Robins, MD who has been practicing for 20 years, has experienced her fair share of burnout. “I think that medicine is all encompassing,” she explains. “It just takes up so much of your energy, your time, your whole self. It got to the point where there was nothing else in my life outside of medicine.” Instead of leaving the profession entirely, Robin decided to cut back office hours and take more time for herself.

National Cyber Security Alliance Executive Director Michael Kaiser believes passwords will soon be a thing of the past thanks to advances in biometrics like multifactor authentication incorporating live facial recognition (Blink, and your phone will unlock). Google is already working on such security measures to grant users access to apps. “Let’s work together to make passwords obsolete by embracing innovative techniques that increase our security,” Kaiser suggests. “The future of cybersecurity doesn’t need to be some deep dark secret code; it could simply be you.” 

Sponsor Updates

• E-MDs will host its annual User Conference & Symposium June 23-25 in Austin, TX.
• HealthGrid will deliver patient education content from Healthwise via its patient engagement solution.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at 2016 Optometry’s Meeting June 30-July 2 in Boston.

Blog Posts

• Advanced Practice Training: AdvancedInsight Visit Coding Graphs (AdvancedMD)
• A successful approach to making time for optimization (Nordic)
• The CIO of the Future – Long Live the CIO (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)
• The Top 10 Reasons Transformation is the New Normal for Healthcare – Reason 2 (GE Healthcare)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 6/21/16

Top News

American Well promotes Jon Freshman to CTO, the company’s first since launching 10 years ago. The telemedicine vendor also added a new floor of office space to accommodate its 270 employees. The Boston-based company expects to hire another 30 by the end of the year.

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. Be sure to ask for her “Summer Doldrums Special” that we always run through Labor Day and you’ll get a great deal.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Dallas-based PediaQ raises $4.5 million, bringing its total raised to $6.4 million. The house call and technology startup will use the latest round of funding to expand services in Dallas and Houston, enter the Austin market, and add adult house-call features for licensees that want to use its technology.

Telemedicine

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research voices its support for telemedicine in a letter to the Texas Senate, which held hearings last week to better understand its telemedicine benefits. The foundation emphasized the role telemedicine can play in helping Parkinson’s patients access movement disorder specialists, many of whom are typically located in metropolitan areas. The letter also emphasized the need to eliminate provider requirements in state law that limit the ways in which physicians can serve patients. Teladoc has sued the state in hopes of halting regulations that would require an in-person visit before a virtual one.

Announcements and Implementations

Minnesota HIE Koble-MN selects Orion Health’s Amadeus precision medicine software. The HIE was established in 2015 with assistance from South Dakota Health Link.

Point-of-Care Partners expands its e-prescribing state law review resource to include new state mandates related to the dispensing of opiates and biosimilars drugs.

ChartLogic offers a medical billing analysis calculator to help practices better understand billing performance and peer benchmarks.

Alliance Oncology (TN) selects care coordination software from Equicare Health to assist with oncology patient management at 26 treatment centers.

Power2Practice announces Fitbit integration with its physician-built EHR for integrative medicine. A P2P survey found that 70 percent of such physicians already recommend wearable fitness trackers as part of a patient’s treatment plan. I’d love to know how many of those patients end up incorporating wearables and sharing that treatment data, and how those physicians deal with the data (not to mention get paid for dealing with it.)

Higi selects cybersecurity and compliance solutions from Washington, DC-based startup Ostendio. The digital health station vendor, which announced $40 million in funding early this year, has over 4,000 stations installed across the country at retailers like Rite Aid and Publix. 

Ten FQHCs in West Virginia enlist the services of Aledade and the West Virginia Primary Care Association to form an ACO. The only one of its kind in the state, Aledade West Virginia Health Center ACO will serve 13,000 patients, initially focusing on care coordination, population health management, and preventive services.

Government and Politics

CMS will update the HIPAA Administrative Simplification section of its website, promising streamlined content and easier navigation. Dr. Jayne shares her always astute thoughts on that process in this week’s Curbside Consult.

Research and Innovation

It seems pharma reps with at least $20 in their pockets stand a good chance of influencing physician prescribing patterns. An Open Payments data analysis found that physicians who received a single meal promoting the drug of interest had higher rates of prescribing that drug to Medicare beneficiaries. Prescription rates increased alongside dinner dates, though researchers note that the findings represent an association rather than a cause-and-effect relationship.

Other

See if you can follow this: Citrix-owned GoToMyPC resets all user passwords to stop hackers who breach other services from accessing the GoToMyPC accounts of people who reuse passwords. The remote-management service claims it was the victim of a “password reuse attack, where attackers used usernames and passwords leaked from other websites to access the accounts of GoToMyPC users.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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