News 5/19/16

Top News

GE Healthcare announces Project Northstar, its latest solution for the ambulatory market. Scheduled for GA in the first quarter of 2017, Northstar will initially offer Centricity customers an ecosystem of technologies that includes population health management, RCM, and payer connectivity. Mr. H has all the details in his interview with GE Healthcare IT VP/GM Jon Zimmerman.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Private equity firm Abry Partners secures a majority investment in Dermatology Associates. The Dallas-based practice management business provides its services to 60 dermatologists in 42 clinics across Texas, Kansas, and Missouri.

Wired reports that Nintendo is getting into healthcare, including the development, manufacture, and sale of medical devices, health devices, and computer software. Industry insiders speculate the company is trying to revive its “Quality of Life” initiative – including sleep trackers/monitors and vitality sensors that never quite got off the ground several years ago. While I tend to think of Nintendo as just a gaming company (I can still fondly remember trying to blow the dust out of its original gaming cartridges), it has also dabbled in toys, arcade machines, and Japanese “love” hotels.

Announcements and Implementations

Drchrono updates its RCM software, adding enhanced eligibility verification, denied claims process, and accounts receivable.

CommunityHealthIT joins the Florida HIE. The nonprofit, via its RelayHealth-powered MyHealthStory HIE, will connect to the HIE’s patient look-up service and act as a liaison to help local physicians connect to the statewide exchange.

CareCloud adds a credit processing solution to its CareCloud Central PM system.

BusComm, a voice management and recording solutions firm based in St. Louis, begins offering Nuance’s Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2.

People

Clay Cockerell, MD (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) joins MyDerm Portal’s Medical Advisory Board.

Michael Sokol, MD (Sanofi) joins WebMD Health Services as CMO.

Athenahealth promotes Karl Stubelis to SVP and CFO. Chief Financial and Administrative Officer Kristi Matus will step down effective May 31. The company has also announced plans to hire a SVP of talent and culture.

Research and Innovation

Google attempts to keep up with Amazon’s Echo, launching Google Assistant at its annual developer’s conference. Developers stress that Google’s virtual assistant will surpass Alexa’s capabilities through its ability to use images and other data to offer more intuitive results to user questions. It will be interesting to see how this technology gets picked up by healthcare. Boston Children’s Hospital has already launched an Alexa-friendly “skill” called KidsMD that lets parents ask Alexa healthcare-related questions.

Other

Hackers that breached LinkedIn in 2012 attempt to sell the data they stole, including 117 million email addresses and passwords. The company has begun notifying impacted users (myself included), requesting that they change their passwords.

Contacts

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

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News 5/18/16

Top News

The Medical Association of Georgia will partner with KaMMCO Health Solutions to establish a private HIE for its members this summer. The HIE will also provide participating physicians with actionable analytics to better enable care coordination.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Announcements and Implementations

WEA Trust, a provider of group health coverage for public employees in Wisconsin, rolls out Livongo Health’s diabetes care management tools to its employees. The trust completed an “encouraging” pilot with Livongo’s smart glucometer and Certified Diabetes Educators with four large employers earlier this year. 

Medical Advantage Group launches the Consortium of Independent Physician Associations in Ohio to assist Buckeye State physicians in the transition to value-based care. CIPA consulting services will include practice assessments, group purchasing, and a range of healthcare IT selection and implementation offerings.

Aurora Health Care (WI) implements online appointment reservation software from Clockwise.MD at select urgent care and walk-in clinics.

People

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush returns to Jackson Healthcare’s Board of Advisors after taking time off to run his presidential campaign.

Taiymoor Naqi (CareCentrix) joins Hixny in the new role of privacy and security officer.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Population health management company Virtual Health raises an undisclosed amount of funding from growth equity firm Edison Partners. The New York City-based startup primarily serves payers, managed care organizations, ACOs, and city governments. Founder Adam Sabloff has an interesting background; he founded hospital and hotel software firm Midtown Technologies and did a five-year stint at Midtown Equities.

Government and Politics

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signs a bill making the state’s voluntary prescription drug monitoring program mandatory. Physicians will now have to check the state’s PDMP database before prescribing opiate painkillers except in emergencies or when treating hospice or cancer patients.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic kicks off its Community Giveback Week.
• Clockwise.MD will exhibit at the Pediatric Urgent Care Conference June 1-3 in New York City.
• Bloomberg profiles GE Healthcare CEO John Flannery.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the 2016 annual meeting of the California Orthopedic Association May 19-21 in Dana Point, CA.
• Healthwise will exhibit at the Cognizant / Trizetto User Group Meeting May 22-25 in Palm Desert, CA.

Blog Posts

• Data Re-Use – Usability, Patient Safety, and Organizational Policy (AdvancedMD)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 5/17/16

Top News

Direct primary care physician network MedLion Management chooses the InLight EHR from Amazing Charts as its preferred solution for documentation and billing. Founded in 2009, the company operates in 27 states and counts itself as the largest DPC group in the US.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Announcements and Implementations

In Hand Health develops a Web-based app to help physical therapists create custom home exercise programs for their patients, and a separate app that lets patients view and record their exercises and securely message their therapists.

Aprima’s PRM 2016 software earns NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home Prevalidation.

People

Vermont Information Technology Leaders names Robert Turnau (ReSource) vice president of finance/CFO and consultant Jonathan Knapp security analyst.

Telemedicine

The Nebraska-based Midwest Independent Physicians Practice Association partners with technology company AET to offer telemedicine services to its patients living in rural areas.

Other

The local business paper profiles The Center for Rheumatology, an Albany, NY-based practice that has made a conscious effort to expand in order to remain independent and still maintain leverage with payers and drug companies. CEO Janice Maguire attributes the aggressive strategy to the founding physicians’ desire to remain independent:  “One of the trends in health care is that a lot of medical practices, in order to protect themselves against the liabilities and risks out there in the volatile world, are looking to the hospitals,” she said. “A lot of my doctors thought the hospitals come in with a really sweet deal and they pay really high salaries the first couple of years, and they only have to go to work from 8 to 5 … and then all the sudden things change, and they realize they’re losing control."

Bathing suit season, here we come: An Intel Security survey finds that consumers don’t give enough thought to the security of promotional email links, especially when easy weight loss plans are involved. Over 60 percent of survey takers clicked on a link promoting a diet program, while 30 percent bought a product from that promotional link without verifying the legitimacy of the link. A majority of respondents noted they’d be happy to share their name, age, and email address online if it would assist in their weight-loss efforts.  While I’m sure HIStalk Practice readers are far too savvy to fall for such clickbait ploys, it might be wise to tell your friends and family to thoroughly vet their digital health and wellness resources.

Contacts

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

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5 Questions With David Shih, MD CMO, CityMD

David Shih, MD is CMO at CityMD, a chain of urgent care facilities in New York and New Jersey. The company, which employs 1,500 staff to care for 1.3 million patients each year, made the switch from Aprima to EClinicalWorks last fall and is looking to begin the Meaningful Use attestation process sometime this year. It is the first private urgent care provider in the nation to achieve NCQA Patient-Centered Connected Care recognition.

What was the impetus for implementing eCW? How do you hope its utilization will benefit CityMD and its patients?
In order for us to take our practice to the next level in providing the best patient-centered medical care and to begin multiple of IT initiatives, we needed an EHR partner that could scale and grow with us. This meant that we needed a national partner who could help us in multiple areas – from optimizing billing, front desk, and clinical operations to gathering business intelligence and obtaining analysis of data to assistance in compliance and reporting of of MU, PQRs, and related quality metrics to introduction of a patient portal, care coordination, and referral management tools – to improve the patient experience and increase our ability to serve with kindness.

Where is your organization with Meaningful Use?
Meaningful Use is projected to start sometime in 2016. Due to the multiple changes in MU, we have found it very challenging to initiate this project due to layers and layers of complexity. It was not designed well, and CMS has already announced that MU will go away and merge into MIPS by 2019. With that said, the financial penalties attached to this project means we will have to attempt this.

What sort of healthcare technology adoption/implementation challenges are unique to urgent care practices?
Many of the quality initiatives such as PQRS, CAHPS or MU do not have urgent care in mind. They are geared towards primary care or hospital-based practices. Many of the challenges in healthcare technology stem from the fact that systems do not talk to each other, evolve very quickly and/or become outdated, and many healthcare systems cannot agree on the same standards, which makes it very difficult for our practice to determine best practice.

How has CityMD handled the transition to e-prescribing in New York?
The transition to e-prescription has been relatively smooth since ECW and the operations team at CityMD had time to prepare. Overall, there were few complaints or issues from the patients and providers.

What’s next on the horizon for CityMD in terms of new healthcare technologies, particularly those that will better enable patient engagement?
There are many healthcare IT initiatives planned for this year. We plan on continuing our PQRS, CAHPS, and MU reporting. We are starting PCP notification, referral management, integration with other EHRs, expanding our patient portal capabilities, implementing kiosks and mobile technology, and diving into telehealth.

Contacts

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

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News 5/16/16

Top News

RCM vendor Keizer Solutions acquires EHR and PM technology vendor Colonial Valley Software for an undisclosed sum.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

The latest HIStalk poll asks, Would you recommend the hospital or medical practice where you had your most recent medical experience as a patient? I can’t help but weigh in with an experience I’m sure I’m not the first to have. My last experience took place at a family practice recently acquired by a large health system, meaning that billing is now handled offsite at the corporate office, and that clinical staff are that much more removed from the pricing of their services. My visit, which was my first at the practice, met my expectations in that my physician took the time to listen to my concerns with a sympathetic ear with no keyboard-entry distractions. I felt that I had her full attention for the time it took me to share my concerns. I didn’t feel rushed. Blood work was conducted just down the hall in an efficient manner, and I received the results via the patient portal maybe a day later. The rub came when the bill arrived. The cost was, in my opinion, exorbitant, and hadn’t been billed through my insurance, which the front-office staff was unfamiliar with. I called the main billing office to ask for an itemized bill, which I never received. Like so many patients, I let the bill languish for a few weeks before ultimately paying the whole thing just so I could put the episode behind me. In taking the poll, I’d have to say that I’d recommend the physician, but not the practice. I fortunately don’t go to the doctor often. When next I do, I’ll likely search out that diamond in the healthcare rough – the still-independent physician who isn’t tethered to the billing bureaucracy of its hospital overlord. You can share your story via the poll here.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Santa Monica, CA-based PatientPop secures a $20 million Series A round of financing led by Toba Capital, which brings its total funding to $33.3 million. The startup will use the new funding to further develop its practice growth software, which offers patient acquisition, retention, reputation, and business insight tools.

Announcements and Implementations

PokitDok makes available three new APIs – Pharmacy Plan, Pharmacy Formulary, and In-Network Pharmacy – to give physicians and developers better insight into pharmacy benefits and eligibility.

The Alamo Area Resource Center (TX) selects ClientTrack case management, EHR, and billing technology from Eccovia Solutions to help manage its new outpatient clinic and growing mental health program.

Dominion Pathology Associates implements RCM services from McKesson Business Performance Services at its 10-physician group serving Carilion Clinic facilities in Western Virginia.

People

Valita Fredland (IU Health) joins the Indiana HIE as vice president, general counsel and privacy officer.

Glen Prasser (Beacon Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine) joins the Independent Physicians Collaborative as executive director. Founded with help from Prasser in 2015, IPC now represents of 21 independent physician groups in Cincinnati.

Telemedicine

Arizona and New Hampshire adopt the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, bringing the total number of states looking to expedite medical licensure to 14.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine adds a self-pay feature to its telemedicine platform for sleep medicine physicians and sleep centers.

Research and Innovation

New research emphasizes what many healthcare insiders already know: Consumers keep buying wearables, yet do not find value or cannot easily incorporate them into their healthcare. An online PwC survey of over 1,000 consumers finds that nearly half own a wearable device (smartphones included), and 36 percent of those own more than one. Yet a separate, smaller Accenture study finds that nearly half of its respondents who use digital health tools like wearables do not integrate data from these tools into their care. Just 32 percent of those surveyed say data collected from their mobile and Web-based apps is automatically shared with their provider. Perhaps the data integration issue really boils down to whether or not physicians want to be responsible for receiving and acting upon all that data.

Government and Politics

CMS, responding to small medical practice concerns about MACRA, publishes a fact sheet and reminds that it will accept comments about the proposed legislation through June 27.

AHRQ offers a Patient-centered Outcomes Research Clinical Decision Support Learning Network grant to researchers looking to better understand how to add comparative-effectiveness research into practice via decision support software.

ONC announces that former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will keynote its annual meeting May 31-June 2 in Washington, DC.

Other

The local paper looks at Dose, a Nashville-based startup that is finding a niche providing on-demand urgent care house calls. The 11-employee company, which launched last year, charges $99 for an exam, diagnosis, and treatment, and is looking to partner with employers and health systems that want to up their access game.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
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