Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 4/9/17

Care management tech company Altruista Health hires Jean Prater (General Dynamics IT) as VP of project management, and Tom Joyer (Health Integrated) as VP of sales.

I2I Population Health names Dawn Berg (Assist Consulting Group), Scot McCray (CamCare) (not pictured), and Jay Wilkes (RyMir Consulting) to its sales team. Adam Ackerman (Relatient) joins the company as director of client development.

Netsmart will work with several clients, including Tri-County Mental Health Services (MO), located in states selected to participate in the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic program. The CCBHC program requires the use of evidence-based practices, care coordination, integration with physical healthcare, and the provision of 24-hour crisis care, plus participation in a new payment system set up by SAMHSA. The company will deliver care coordination, connectivity, HIE, RCM, and population health management solutions.

CMS awards United Way of Greater Cleveland a $4.51 million grant to help it create a Accountable Health Communities Model. The United Way chapter will use the funds over a five-year period to integrate its community resource navigators into seven Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth, St. Vincent Charity Medical Center, and Care Alliance Health Center locations. The navigators will work with the providers to assess the health-related social needs of Medicaid and Medicare patients, many of whom live below poverty level. The grant will also help the organizations partner on technology, workflow design, assessment, and planning needs.

Iowa-based Mercy ACO selects Innovaccer’s Datashop data warehouse to aggregate health data from 65 participating facilities including ambulatory sites, hospitals, and payers.

Sponsor Updates

• Intelligent Medical Objects exhibits at the Allscripts Northeast Pro ARUG in Hartford, CT.
• Nordic Consulting presents what employees love most about the company.

Blog Posts

• Non-technical Considerations Before Beginning an Epic Connect Project (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 4/6/17

Top News

Less than two months after opening a second office, Drchrono closes a $12 million round of Series A funding led by Runa Capital. The Mountain View, CA-based company, which has raised just over $16 million since opening its doors in 2009, will add Runa Capital Partner Andre Bliznyuk and Maxfield Capital Managing Parter Oleg Koujikov to its board.

Webinars

April 26 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “SSM Integrated Health Technologies Clinical Data Migration: Functional and Technical Considerations.” Sponsored by Galen Healthcare Solutions. Presenters: Sandy Winklemann, MHA, RHIA, project manager, SSM Integration Health Technologies; Tyler Mawyer, MHA, managing consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions; Kavon Kaboli, MPH, senior consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions. GE Centricity and Meditech to Epic EHR transition. Join us for a complimentary webinar as present the decisions that are important to consider when performing a clinical data migration from the point of view of  the healthcare organization program manager, the clinical analyst, and the technical implementation team. Our expert panel will survey data migration considerations, best practices, and lessons learned. The webinar will present a unique client perspective, offering insight into considerations surrounding staffing, clinical mapping, legacy application support, and validation and testing.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Rio Grande Valley Health Alliance will pilot remote patient monitoring, care coordination, and telemedicine technology from Reliq Health Technologies with its primary care patients beginning next month. The alliance is a Texas-based ACO made up of 17 PCPs working in 15 independent practices. Launched in 2013, it now cares for 30,000 Medicare beneficiaries.

People

InSync Healthcare Solutions hires Trent Baker as CISO.

Former Cerner executive (and International Federation of Body Builders competitor) Daphne Bascom, MD becomes the first physician on staff at a YMCA in the US. She joins the YMCA of Greater Kansas City in the new role of SVP of community integrated health.

Telemedicine

PatientClick develops PC Connect, a patient-facing telemedicine app that also features health-record access.

Findings from an American Telemedicine Association survey of 170 member executives echo the results of other, similar studies released thus far in 2017:

• 83 percent will likely invest in telemedicine this year.
• 84 percent feel telemedicine services will “strongly” expand their organization’s coverage and reach.
• 98 percent believe virtual services offer a competitive advantage.
• Reimbursement and licensure are top barriers to greater adoption.

Government and Politics

ONC announces a health data provenance challenge. The office will award up to $180,000 in prizes to teams/entries that can successfully identify available capabilities and methods used by healthcare stakeholders to communicate the provenance of data as it is used to support care. The first round of submissions closes May 22.

Other

The National Quality Forum holds its annual conference in Pentagon City, VA. Data liquidity and outcomes measurement seemed to be hot topics. Aledade CEO Farzad Mostashari, MD lamented that Aledade physicians can’t get data from a third of their EHR vendors.

The wearable that wears you: Dutch industrial designer Daniel de Bruin creates the Neurotransmitter 3000 – a single-person ride that speeds up or slows down based on the rider’s biometric data. High levels of fear or nausea cause the ride to slow down, while more normal vital signs cause it to speed up.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

From the Consultant’s Corner 4/6/17

Getting the Lay of the MACRA Land This Year and Next

Despite the change in administration, MACRA, with its Quality Payment Program, is here for at least awhile, having received tremendous bipartisan support in Congress. Because there is significant upside and downside Medicare payment risk, it is essential for all providers to prepare for this new QPP.

Who Participates

If your organization is actively participating in advanced Alternative Payment Models, then the participation in this QPP is covered. However, only 10 percent of providers fall into this category. If there are few Medicare charges or patients, or a new Medicare provider, you do not have to participate. Therefore, most physicians and practice groups will fall under the category of participating under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System program.

Core Components

While MACRA is very similar to the PQRS, Value Modifier, and Meaningful Use programs, it attempts to align all three programs via four components:

• Quality (numerous metrics to choose from)
• Resource Utilization (cost will not be a factor in 2017 and only 10 percent in 2018)
• Advancing Care Information (use of an EHR, with numerous metrics to choose from)
• Clinical Practice Improvement Activities (process improvement – demonstrate core capabilities plus a few additional metrics to choose from)

Performance in these categories is weighted and begins with 60-percent quality, 25-percent advancing care information, and 15-percent process improvement. In two years the weighting will change to 30-percent quality, and 30-percent resource utilization, while advancing care information and process improvement will stay the same at 25 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

Just as with PQRS, there are still multiple ways to report. You can report as an individual provider with an NPI/TIN or as a group of physicians under one TIN. Reporting can take place via claims, registry, CMS website, Qualified Clinical Data Registry or through the EHR system.

There is a significant upside and downside to starting at 4 percent of fee scheduling and ending up at 9 percent over the next four years. This will be based, in large part, on balance budget. Therefore, there will be winners and losers, and providers will essentially be competing against one another. Above all, there is a $500 million pool of money to be shared by the exceptional performers.

What is Important for 2017?

In recognition of the complexity of a new program, many individuals and practices that have not previously reported will begin reporting. CMS has decided that the threshold to avoid a negative penalty should be very low for 2017. As long as one metric – a quality metric, performance improvement project attestation, or the minimum standard of EHR use – is met, the provider/group will not be penalized for their 2017 performance. Because very few will be penalized, there will also be little upside gain. Providers can use 2017 as a year to develop overarching strategy and infrastructure, rather than worry about whole-scale reporting.

Strategy

Typically, many practices put their finance and IT departments in charge of selecting measures that are feasible to report on, reporting, and ensuring accuracy. However, this is a good time for organizations to step back and take a broader look at their organization, which typically includes:

• CIO – Meaningful Use
• CFO – PQRS
• CMO – Quality
• Population Health Lead
• CMIO – EHR Deployment and Optimization

This program provides an opportunity to pull together these leaders and consider organizational strategies. It allows the leadership to then pick metrics and projects that will support their long-term vision, and focus resources on those areas that will most likely help the broader quality goals of the organization. This would create sustainable improvement and optimize performance.

This year is a great one to select a few metrics that are easy to perform to get one’s feet wet and develop a strategy and infrastructure to support MACRA and QPP for the long run.

Nancy Gagliano, MD is CMO at Culbert Healthcare Solutions in Woburn, MA.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 4/5/17

Top News

Findings from Medscape’s annual physician compensation report emphasize the many monetary challenges today’s MDs face, and the tendency towards burnout those challenges engender. A few findings:

• Irrespective of salary, 41 percent of PCPs and 33 percent of specialists believe they should earn more – nearly one in five are working longer hours for fewer wages.
• Physician salaries average $294,000 per year; specialists earn nearly $100,000 more than PCPs.
• Orthopedists bring home the most bacon at $489,000.
• Family physicians and pediatricians bring home the least, with $209,000 and $202,000, respectively.
• Providers in rural states tend to make more than their suburban and urban counterparts.

Webinars

April 26 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “SSM Integrated Health Technologies Clinical Data Migration: Functional and Technical Considerations.” Sponsored by Galen Healthcare Solutions. Presenters: Sandy Winklemann, MHA, RHIA, project manager, SSM Integration Health Technologies; Tyler Mawyer, MHA, managing consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions; Kavon Kaboli, MPH, senior consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions. GE Centricity and Meditech to Epic EHR transition. Join us for a complimentary webinar as present the decisions that are important to consider when performing a clinical data migration from the point of view of  the healthcare organization program manager, the clinical analyst, and the technical implementation team. Our expert panel will survey data migration considerations, best practices, and lessons learned. The webinar will present a unique client perspective, offering insight into considerations surrounding staffing, clinical mapping, legacy application support, and validation and testing.

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

Announcements and Implementations

CoreLinq Innovations adds payment capabilities from Integrity Payment Systems to its lines of outpatient radiology business tools.

Urgent care EHR vendor Edaris Health joins Athenahealth’s More Disruption Please program and marketplace. Launched in 2011, the marketplace offers MDP partner products (140 and counting) to Athenahealth end users.

GE Healthcare adds the CareFinity business continuity and archiving solution from EMedApps to its Centricity Partner Program.

OptimizeRx adds access to prescription savings programs from SingleCare Services to its e-prescribing savings platform.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Office Practicum staff make the company’s relocation to new corporate headquarters, announced in early March, official with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The pediatric-focused EHR and PM software company will be at the new office in Fort Washington, PA for at least seven years.

People

Bevey Miner (HealthLoop) joins Practice Fusion as CMO.

Telemedicine

The results of an American Society of Sleep Medicine survey show overwhelming support for telemedicine:

• Nearly half of respondents are willing to use telemedicine to see a PCP.
• Just over 70 percent of those making more than $75,000 annually would use the technology to see a healthcare professional.
• Nearly 70 percent would be willing to see a sleep specialist via virtual consult. (The percentage climbs to 77 percent for Millenials.)

The news is no doubt music to the ears of ASSM, which introduced a telemedicine tool for sleep specialists in January 2016.

Other

File these guys under “Guilty Pleasure:” US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD tweets/teases (tweases?) his upcoming appearance on Rhett & Link’s Good Mythical More Youtube series (a continuation of their Good Mythical Morning series). If you’ve never heard of these guys, I highly encourage you to check out “My OCD (Song).”

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Telemedicine: Celebrate the possibilities of expanded patient care (AdvancedMD)
• Connecting the Dots – The Value of SSOT Crosswalk Documents (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)
• Can you and your patients have it all? Why you should personalize and standardize care plans (Healthwise)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 4/4/17

Top News

The CVS Health Foundation continues its support of the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics with an award of over $1 million to 33 FCC clinics across the country. Recipients will use the $20,000 to $35,000 in funding to support chronic disease management and prevention programs, improve care coordination, and increase access to care. Clearwater Free Clinic (FL) has already earmarked its funds for new EHR software.

Webinars

April 26 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “SSM Integrated Health Technologies Clinical Data Migration: Functional and Technical Considerations.” Sponsored by Galen Healthcare Solutions. Presenters: Sandy Winklemann, MHA, RHIA, project manager, SSM Integration Health Technologies; Tyler Mawyer, MHA, managing consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions; Kavon Kaboli, MPH, senior consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions. GE Centricity and Meditech to Epic EHR transition. Join us for a complimentary webinar as present the decisions that are important to consider when performing a clinical data migration from the point of view of  the healthcare organization program manager, the clinical analyst, and the technical implementation team. Our expert panel will survey data migration considerations, best practices, and lessons learned. The webinar will present a unique client perspective, offering insight into considerations surrounding staffing, clinical mapping, legacy application support, and validation and testing.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Columbus, OH-based Healthy Roster raises $1.9 million to further develop its EHR and app for student athletes and trainers. Founded in 2015, the company has close to 10 staff members, and is the third company launched by co-founder and CEO Nathan Heerdt; he founded JobBoards.com in the late 90s and Caster Ventures in 2007.

Announcements and Implementations

Arizona Connected Care selects referral management technology from Fibroblast to streamline referrals among its ACO network of 450 physicians.

People

The Community Health Centers of Burlington (VT) promotes Alison Calderara to CEO. She takes over from Greg Robinson, who was fired last November along with three others amidst disagreements (and a software conversion) with the board about CHCB’s direction.

Zipnosis CEO Jon Pearce joins the American Telemedicine Association’s Industry Council Executive Committee.

Mary Jo Potter (Healthcare Angels) joins SnapMD’s Corporate Advisory Board.

Marta Roth, MD (Roth Family Medicine) joins the American Health Council’s physician board.

Research and Innovation

A Johnson & Johnson study of 10,000 adults finds that health risk assessments – screening tools used by employers and payers to identify health risks associated with stress, sleep, and quality of life – can be a valuable tool in identifying people at risk for depression. A quarter of respondents experienced mild depressive symptoms; one in five of those deteriorated over time with a corresponding increase in symptoms.

Telemedicine

San Francisco-based PlushCare brings its virtual consult services to New Jersey – one of a handful of states that still have no regulatory guidance around the definition, practice, and reimbursement of telemedicine. New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute President and CEO Linda Schwimmer says the company’s services “may be a good option” for residents of The Garden State: “I say ‘may be’ because that comes down to the quality of their care and experience,” she explains. “The reason why we would like to see a clear law and regulations on telehealth is because from a consumer protection standpoint, I want patients to have assurances that the services are provided by licensed healthcare professionals and that NJ has oversight over those providers.”

Other

Heads up, USPS: New Zealand’s postal service turns to fried chicken delivery to diversify in the midst of plummeting sales. NZ Post has partnered with Kentucky Fried Chicken for a trial run of home deliveries in the port city of Tauranga, with the expectation that the pilot will expand to about half the country in the near future.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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