News 10/23/17

Top News

New Mexico Cancer Center President and CEO Barbara McAneny, MD tells the local paper she is the first oncologist, fourth woman, and first New Mexican to be elected president of the AMA, a position she’ll take on next year. The president-elect plans on emphasizing the need to put power back into the hands of physicians so that they can better focus on patients. McAneny has been critical of plans to build more hospitals in New Mexico in lieu of investing money in preventative healthcare services. “I do not believe we need more hospitals,” she explains. “[W]e really should be investing our resources in primary care and having enough doctors out where the people are. Look under a crane in most cities and you’ll find either a health plan or a hospital, and that’s not where we should be spending our resources.”

Webinars

October 24 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Improve Care and Save Clinician Time by Streamlining Specialty Drug Prescribing.” Sponsored by: ZappRx. Presenter: Jeremy Feldman, MD, director, pulmonary hypertension and advanced lung disease program and medical director of research, Arizona Pulmonary Specialists. Clinicians spend an average of 20 minutes to prescribe a single specialty drug and untold extra hours each month completing prior authorization (PA) paperwork to get patients the medications they need. This webinar will describe how Arizona Pulmonary Specialists automated the inefficient specialty drug ordering process to improve patient care while saving its clinicians time.

October 25 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Delivering the Healthcare Pricing Transparency that Consumers are Demanding.” Sponsored by: Health Catalyst. Presenter: Gene Thompson, director, Health City Cayman Islands. Health systems are unlike every other major consumer category in not providing upfront pricing information. Learn how one health system has developed predictable, transparent bundled pricing for most major specialties. Attendees will gain insight into the importance of their quality measures and their use of actual daily procedure costing rather than allocated costs. They will also learn about the strategic risk of other market participants competing with single bundled pricing. The organization’s director will expand how its years-long process is enabling healthcare delivery reform.

October 26 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Is your EHR limiting your success in value-based care?” Sponsored by: Philips Wellcentive. Presenters: Lindsey Bates, market director of compliance, Philips Wellcentive; Greg Fulton, industry and public policy lead, Philips Wellcentive. No single technology solution will solve every problem, so ensuring you select the ones most aligned to meet your strategic goals can be the difference between thriving or merely surviving. From quality reporting to analytics to measures building, developing a comprehensive healthcare strategy that will support your journey in population health and value-base care programs is the foundation of success. Join Philips Wellcentive for our upcoming interactive webinar, where we’ll help you evolve ahead of the industry, setting the right strategic goals and getting the most out of your technology solutions.

November 8 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “How Clinically Integrated Networks Can Overcome the Technical Challenges to Data-Sharing.” Sponsored by: Liaison Technologies. Presenters: Dominick Mack, MD, executive medical director, Georgia Health Information Technology Extension Center and Georgia Health Connect, director, National Center for Primary Care, and associate professor, Morehouse School of Medicine;  Gary Palgon, VP of  healthcare and life sciences solutions, Liaison Technologies. This webinar will describe how Georgia Heath Connect connects clinically integrated networks to hospitals and small and rural practices, helping providers in medically underserved communities meet MACRA requirements by providing technology, technology support, and education that accelerates regulatory compliance and improves outcomes.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Santéch Solutions develops open APIs to help I-Network end users more easily share data with payers for credentialing and reimbursement.

People

Digital health data aggregation vendor Evoq Medical promotes Dan Collard to CEO.

Government and Politics

Physicians in Oklahoma prepare for the worst in light of looming budget cuts to Medicaid. A 9-percent cut proposed by the Oklahoma State Health Authority would save the state $28 million, but force private practice physicians like Brent Siemens, DC to close clinics and lay off employees. Others, like Matthew Haag, MD will rethink participation altogether. “Patients are going to have a tough time finding a doctor,” he says. “If they keep cutting it like this, I’ll probably bail out.” 

With help from PDMP vendor Appriss Health, the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy will upgrade the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System to include secure messaging between prescribers, overdose and addiction risk scoring for patients, red flags for potential patient safety issues, and search tools for behavioral health and substance abuse treatment facilities.

Telemedicine

Mend VIP partners with the Medical Society of Delaware’s Health Hub IT services subsidiary to offer telemedicine services to its 1,000 members.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Monroe County Commissioners in the Florida Keys rethink plans to expand an in-school clinic program after local physicians complain that it has resulted in fewer appointments at their brick-and-mortar practices. “I am self-funded and can’t compete with free office space and [public] funding,” says Michael Hernandez, MD at a recent commission meeting. “It’s not just me,” he added. “Other physicians all feel the same way. We’re all being impacted, more or less.”

Other

Namaste Health Care (MO) notifies patients of an August ransomware attack that held its files hostage for about $2,000 (the price of the requested half bitcoin). The primary care and family medicine practice paid up, and are now investigating who was behind the breach. Patient data does not seem to have been compromised.

It’s not fall in my neck of the woods until this local business puts its humorous twist on the season’s most popular flavor.

Sponsor Updates

• Madison Magazine recognizes Nordic President of Managed Services Vivek Swaminathan as an innovative leader.

Blog Posts

• Next-Generation GPUs: Driving Innovation in Speech Technology and Beyond (NVoq)

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Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 10/22/17

HMC HealthWorks – a healthcare management company that caters to employers, insurance brokers, unions, and third-party administrators – selects Medecision’s Aerial tools including population analytics, financial performance dashboard, care and correspondence management, and Health Summary PHR.

Great Lakes Health Connect adds real-time alerts and referral services for physical, mental, and social determinants of healthcare from Holon Solutions to its HIE services for providers in Michigan.

Catholic Medical Center (NH) will implement Allscripts CareInMotion for population health management.

CVS – whose MinuteClinic and specialty care management programs use Epic — will implement Epic’s Healthy Planet population health and analytics platform to give prescribers point-of-care information about drug formulary status, suggest lower-cost alternatives, and perform electronic prior authorization. The integration will also send a patient’s non-prescription drug purchases made via digital store front to their record in Epic’s EHR.

Population health management system vendor BaseHealth receives an $8.5 million investment in a Series C funding round, increasing its total to $18 million.

ZeOmega develops a certification program with technical and clinical tracks for third-party consultants looking to become experts in the company’s Jiva population health management platform.

Nashville-based Applied Health Analytics adds claims integration to its BIQ population health management platform to help providers balance utilization with preventative care.

Northwest Community Care Network and Partnership for Community Care Network – both formed several decades ago as part of Medicaid’s Community Care of North Carolina program – form Emtiro Health, a joint venture that will offer population health management solutions to providers, patients, and payers. NCCN leader Jim Graham has transitioned to president and CEO of the new company.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the 2017 TAHP Managed Care Conference & Trade Show October 23-24 in Houston.
• Healthwise will exhibit at the HealthTrio 2017 Users Group Conference October 25-27 in Tucson.

Blog Posts

• How to identify HCC patients for better care, reimbursement (Intelligent Medical Objects)

Contacts

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News 10/19/17

Top News

Athenahealth announces “a fundamental refocusing of the entire company,” which includes a 9-percent workforce reduction that it hopes will generate $100 million to $115 million in savings by year’s end. Layoffs are expected to include sales, marketing, administrative, and end user-focused staff. The news came as part of the company’s report on Q3 earnings: $304.6 million in revenue, with a downward adjustment of annual revenue to between $1.2 billion and $1.22 billion. The spate of news isn’t that surprising, given the shakeup activist investor Elliott Management has incited, and Athena’s subsequent focus on streamlining operations in hopes of ramping up hospital implementations.

Webinars

October 24 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Improve Care and Save Clinician Time by Streamlining Specialty Drug Prescribing.” Sponsored by: ZappRx. Presenter: Jeremy Feldman, MD, director, pulmonary hypertension and advanced lung disease program and medical director of research, Arizona Pulmonary Specialists. Clinicians spend an average of 20 minutes to prescribe a single specialty drug and untold extra hours each month completing prior authorization (PA) paperwork to get patients the medications they need. This webinar will describe how Arizona Pulmonary Specialists automated the inefficient specialty drug ordering process to improve patient care while saving its clinicians time.

October 25 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Delivering the Healthcare Pricing Transparency that Consumers are Demanding.” Sponsored by: Health Catalyst. Presenter: Gene Thompson, director, Health City Cayman Islands. Health systems are unlike every other major consumer category in not providing upfront pricing information. Learn how one health system has developed predictable, transparent bundled pricing for most major specialties. Attendees will gain insight into the importance of their quality measures and their use of actual daily procedure costing rather than allocated costs. They will also learn about the strategic risk of other market participants competing with single bundled pricing. The organization’s director will expand how its years-long process is enabling healthcare delivery reform.

October 26 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Is your EHR limiting your success in value-based care?” Sponsored by: Philips Wellcentive. Presenters: Lindsey Bates, market director of compliance, Philips Wellcentive; Greg Fulton, industry and public policy lead, Philips Wellcentive. No single technology solution will solve every problem, so ensuring you select the ones most aligned to meet your strategic goals can be the difference between thriving or merely surviving. From quality reporting to analytics to measures building, developing a comprehensive healthcare strategy that will support your journey in population health and value-base care programs is the foundation of success. Join Philips Wellcentive for our upcoming interactive webinar, where we’ll help you evolve ahead of the industry, setting the right strategic goals and getting the most out of your technology solutions.

November 8 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “How Clinically Integrated Networks Can Overcome the Technical Challenges to Data-Sharing.” Sponsored by: Liaison Technologies. Presenters: Dominick Mack, MD, executive medical director, Georgia Health Information Technology Extension Center and Georgia Health Connect, director, National Center for Primary Care, and associate professor, Morehouse School of Medicine;  Gary Palgon, VP of  healthcare and life sciences solutions, Liaison Technologies. This webinar will describe how Georgia Heath Connect connects clinically integrated networks to hospitals and small and rural practices, helping providers in medically underserved communities meet MACRA requirements by providing technology, technology support, and education that accelerates regulatory compliance and improves outcomes.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Medical and dental compliance company PCIHIPAA offers OfficeSafe ID credit monitoring and restoration services to its employees and customers. The company plans to include it as part of its HIPAA compliance and data-breach program.

The Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas brings in Marathon Health to help it open and run an onsite clinic for 3,500 employees. The PriorityOne Health Center offers primary and urgent care, plus health coaching.

Compass Professional Health Services updates its Health Pro Cloud app for employer-based healthcare plan members to include real-time, out-of-pocket estimates for in-network procedures. The new SpendTracker features will help users remain aware of how close they are to their deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.

People

Healthcare Administrative Partners promotes Maria Calamaro to executive advisor, CMS Quality Payment Program.

Betsy Knorr (DST HealthSolutions) joins HealthCare Information Management as COO.

Research and Innovation

Ahead of open enrollment, physician rating and review site Vitals releases physician rankings based on patient feedback across major metropolitan areas. Forty percent of PCPs received five-star ratings, while 23 percent received one-star ratings. Boston, San Francisco, and Minneapolis had the highest percentages of five-star PCPs, while San Francisco, Denver, and Oakland, CA had similar figures for pediatricians. Over a third of all providers on the Vitals site were found to have low ratings of one or two stars.

Telemedicine

24/7 Kid Doc relocates its headquarters to Savannah, GA to focus on its school-based clients in Georgia. I assume the company decided to moved from North Carolina, given its decision to stop marketing its services to schools there after state lawmakers failed to enact telemedicine-friendly billing laws.

Other

Iliuliuk Family and Health Services in Alaska launches an investigation into an August ransomware attack that temporarily blocked employee access to computers. Patient information doesn’t seem to have been compromised, though a pending final report will uncover the extent of the breach.

Thankfully, I can’t yet fully relate to this scenario.

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From the PRM Pro 10/19/17

Trusting Tech: Integrating Technology While Managing Patient Relationships
By Jim Higgins

It’s the peak of the fall 2017 convention/conference season. Healthcare professionals have spread out across the country, educating themselves and checking out all kinds of health IT vendors and solutions. One thing that always comes up, regardless of specialty, is, “How can I integrate technology in a way that doesn’t make life harder for my staff, threaten compliance, or damage the personal relationships we have developed with our patients?”

Integrating technology with regular practice procedures is often met with concern and skepticism from healthcare practices. Fears about compliance issues and the challenges of implementing technology keep many practices from making the shift. Experts agree that the healthcare field is notoriously slow when it comes to the integration of new technology.

Yet patients are increasingly demanding the integration of technology into their healthcare experiences. According to a recent study by Accenture, 65 percent of health citizens globally believe that the benefits of being able to access medical information electronically outweigh the risk of privacy invasion. Of course, no one wants their privacy breached. But, citing security concerns probably won’t appease patients who don’t have much patience when it comes to getting what they want.

With such a large percentage of patients both desiring and trusting a shift to technological integration in healthcare services, practices now must adapt. Luckily, there are options today to ensure that everyone can get what they need. Practices don’t have to give up being compliant to accommodate changing patient expectations.

Embracing Changing Patient Expectations

Patient relationships are becoming increasingly complex. A generation ago, practices simply interacted with their patients in the office and then were done. Today’s patient relationships rely on more than just face-to-face communication — they also have a significant technological component. Just as patients communicate with friends and family via technology, they want to reach out to their healthcare offices through technology as well.

In addition to this shift to technology, patients are also developing more of a retail-oriented mindset. For example, according to the Patient-Provider Relationship study, one in three patients say they will switch practices in the next couple of years. A concerning (and growing) percentage of these patients are switching for service issues. Never has it been more imperative to meet the shifting demands of your patients—including technology integration.

The most prevalent reasons practices are afraid to integrate technology into their patient relationships can be summarized as follows:

1. Fear of change.
2. Concerns about technology and compliance.
3. Inability to build personal relationships through a screen.

Let’s discuss each of these challenges in detail and explore the solutions to these very legitimate concerns.

Challenge #1: Fear of Change

Practices often become so comfortable with “how things have always been done” that they can actually stand in their own way. This is particularly true when it comes to emerging technologies.

Solution: Ensure that each member of the staff is mentally prepared for the improvements that are coming. Using the word “improvement” is a better way to look at it than just “change;” it’s change in a positive direction. Although it is inevitable that some of your staff will be more open to new ideas than others, the commitment to improve can help motivate people. The most effective way to make any new technology a success is to involve everyone throughout the implementation process. When people are involved, it becomes “their” change and they are motivated to make the implementation a success.

Challenge #2: Technology and Compliance

HIPAA, TCPA, Can-SPAM, MACRA, OSHA. The list alone is daunting. Along with the fear of change, the fear of not being compliant with the myriad of required rules and regulations is one of the biggest deterrents to adopting new technologies.

Solution: Ask the right questions when investigating new technology. It is possible to be compliant when integrating technology into your patient relationships. Modern technology allows you to communicate with patients via email and text message while remaining compliant. You simply must address these issues when looking at the change.

Challenge #3: Building Personal Relationships Through Technology

Personal relationships almost feel like the antithesis of technology. We tend to think of technology as cold and unfeeling, and it is true — technology can be a deterrent to warm relationships. But if patients prefer to communicate via high-tech means, it is important to learn how to build relationships virtually. People are comfortable having conversations via text. It’s all about the interactions.

Solution: Select the most popular technologies and then personalize wherever possible. Texting is the most used form of communication in the world. Seventy-six percent of patients prefer texting to phone calls. Texting your patients just makes sense, but simply texting is not enough. Personalize the types of messages, the tone of the messages, and their frequency to better develop your relationships. Personalization is not only critical to success, but very possible with today’s technologies.

It’s time to stop holding on to old ways of doing things and move into the future. Technology holds the key to improving patient relationships. Trust tech to do the job it was designed to do; you may be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Jim Higgins is the CEO and founder of Solutionreach in Lehi, UT.

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News 10/18/17

Top News

Medsphere will merge with Stockell Healthcare Systems later this month, with Stockell becoming a division of Medsphere. The companies have partnered on implementations in the past, offering customers Medsphere’s OpenVista EHR in combination with Stockell’s RCM technology and services. Medsphere’s ties to physician practices include its acquisition of ambulatory-focused health IT company ChartLogic last year.

Webinars

October 19 (Thursday) noon ET. “Understanding Enterprise Health Clouds with Forrester:  What can they do for you, and how do you choose the right one?” Sponsored by: Salesforce. Presenters: Joshua Newman, MD, chief medical officer, Salesforce; Kate McCarthy, senior analyst, Forrester. McCarthy will demystify industry solutions while offering insights from her recent Forrester report on enterprise health clouds. Newman and customers from leading healthcare organizations will share insights on how they drive efficiencies, manage patient and member journeys, and connect the entire healthcare ecosystem on the Salesforce platform.

October 24 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Improve Care and Save Clinician Time by Streamlining Specialty Drug Prescribing.” Sponsored by: ZappRx. Presenter: Jeremy Feldman, MD, director, pulmonary hypertension and advanced lung disease program and medical director of research, Arizona Pulmonary Specialists. Clinicians spend an average of 20 minutes to prescribe a single specialty drug and untold extra hours each month completing prior authorization (PA) paperwork to get patients the medications they need. This webinar will describe how Arizona Pulmonary Specialists automated the inefficient specialty drug ordering process to improve patient care while saving its clinicians time.

October 25 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Delivering the Healthcare Pricing Transparency that Consumers are Demanding.” Sponsored by: Health Catalyst. Presenter: Gene Thompson, director, Health City Cayman Islands. Health systems are unlike every other major consumer category in not providing upfront pricing information. Learn how one health system has developed predictable, transparent bundled pricing for most major specialties. Attendees will gain insight into the importance of their quality measures and their use of actual daily procedure costing rather than allocated costs. They will also learn about the strategic risk of other market participants competing with single bundled pricing. The organization’s director will expand how its years-long process is enabling healthcare delivery reform.

October 26 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Is your EHR limiting your success in value-based care?” Sponsored by: Philips Wellcentive. Presenters: Lindsey Bates, market director of compliance, Philips Wellcentive; Greg Fulton, industry and public policy lead, Philips Wellcentive. No single technology solution will solve every problem, so ensuring you select the ones most aligned to meet your strategic goals can be the difference between thriving or merely surviving. From quality reporting to analytics to measures building, developing a comprehensive healthcare strategy that will support your journey in population health and value-base care programs is the foundation of success. Join Philips Wellcentive for our upcoming interactive webinar, where we’ll help you evolve ahead of the industry, setting the right strategic goals and getting the most out of your technology solutions.

November 8 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “How Clinically Integrated Networks Can Overcome the Technical Challenges to Data-Sharing.” Sponsored by: Liaison Technologies. Presenters: Dominick Mack, MD, executive medical director, Georgia Health Information Technology Extension Center and Georgia Health Connect, director, National Center for Primary Care, and associate professor, Morehouse School of Medicine;  Gary Palgon, VP of  healthcare and life sciences solutions, Liaison Technologies. This webinar will describe how Georgia Heath Connect connects clinically integrated networks to hospitals and small and rural practices, helping providers in medically underserved communities meet MACRA requirements by providing technology, technology support, and education that accelerates regulatory compliance and improves outcomes.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Hudson Valley Fertility (NY) selects email encryption and HIPAA compliance tools from Identillect Technologies.

In an effort to offer its customers cloud-based security and HIPAA compliance, Eccovia Solutions moves its ClientTrack care coordination technology to the Microsoft Azure government cloud.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stocks

The Texas Medical Association distributes $350,000 of its $1 million Disaster Relief Fund to 28 practices affected by Hurricane Harvey. “My office was totally destroyed when the roof went and flooded everything,” says one recipient. “Ruined five computers, one server, patient charts, all furniture. Have to start over after 28 years here.” A TMA member survey conducted last month found that 65 percent had to temporarily close their practices, while 35 percent had to revert to reduced hours and/or services.

Government and Politics

The State of Ohio launches the Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge to help lawmakers and public health officials identify and potentially develop innovations to combat the opioid epidemic. The competition will award $8 million as it progresses through three stages, the first of which kicks off today.

Mona Khanna, MD quits her role as a Disaster Medical Assistance Team medical officer in Puerto Rico after witnessing a nurse sneak in two manicurists, a massage therapist, and a hair stylist to Centro Medico Hospital in San Juan to give DMAT members a “spa day” while on the clock. “I have served our nation with honor and privilege as a DMAT member for almost 20 years,” she wrote in a letter announcing her resignation. “I find this gross misuse of taxpayer funds and abuse of our privileged positions personally abhorrent. I can no longer serve with honor on a team, with the enabling of the team leader/commander, that abuses the privilege of stewardship of taxpayer funds … I do firmly believe that taxpayers have a right to know how their monies are being used/abused. After all, I am one.”

Caravan Health CEO Lynn Barr believes that exempting two-thirds of providers from the MIPS program, as put forth in the program’s proposed rule, will ultimately have negative consequences that will far outweigh their initial relief at sidestepping burdensome reporting requirements. “There will no longer be financial incentives for clinicians to purchase, upgrade, or maintain their EHRs,” she writes. Providers who are excluded from MIPS will not be required to use EHRs or be eligible for EHR incentives. Additionally, if clinicians are excluded from MIPS, their payment is essentially frozen at 2015 levels, with annual increases between zero and .75 percent — not enough to keep up with inflation. By 2026, a clinician’s purchasing power will decline by at least 18 percent if they are excluded from MIPS, assuming a two percent inflation rate.”

Telemedicine

Vision-focused telemedicine company Opternative sues online prescription glasses retailer Warby Parker for allegedly using its online eye exam technology to develop its own Prescription Check software. The two companies have had close ties since 2013, when their talks of a potential partnership resulted in Warby Parker signing several non-disclosure agreements related Opternative’s software.

Other

New York City-based payer Amida Care finds itself in hot HIPAA water after it mails out HIV-related information to 6,000 members in envelopes with transparent windows.

Sponsor Updates

• Aprima will exhibit at the Academy of Integrative Pain Management Annual Meeting October 19-21 in San Diego.

Blog Posts

• Epic’s Revenue Guardian (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)
• Using Technology to Build an Integrated Practice #1 & #2 of 6 (AdvancedMD)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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