Currently, some 22 states have enacted prescription drug transparency laws that require entities across the drug supply chain to report pricing information to state officials. Designed to shed light on the true cost of drugs and to ensure that consumers and insurers aren’t being gouged, drug pricing transparency laws seek to level the playing field by delivering greater visibility into drug costs. And given the fact that prescription drug prices continue to increase, the topic of drug price
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3 Questions Healthcare IT Leaders Should Ask Before Implementing AI in Their Operations
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are no longer nice-to-have technologies for healthcare providers. They are mission-critical tools for addressing significant challenges many health systems and hospitals face today — from volatile patient volumes to ballooning labor costs and staffing shortages to low operating margins. Many of these challenges are macro-level economic trends that will continue to prevail for the foreseeable future.
According to research from Kaufman Hall,
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Overcoming the Healthcare Staffing Shortage Through Back-Office Automation
Today’s healthcare staffing shortage, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic but years in the making, has left many hospitals and health systems scrambling.
To date, the shortage of front-line healthcare workers has received most of the attention, and for good reason: By 2025, the U.S. is likely to face a shortage of 446,300 home health aides; 95,000 nursing assistants; and 29,400 nurse practitioners, according to a report from consulting firm Mercer.
However, what is less appreciated
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How to Build Better Relationships with the Health Insurance & Payer Communities
Modern healthcare is an intricate dance between quality and quantity.
Payers and insurance providers want better patient outcomes due to the high cost of poor health, while health providers want to ensure their patients aren’t overlooked and are appropriately cared for.
To understand how we can satisfy the needs of both patients and payers, we’ll have to take a step back and look at the relationship between payer communities and telehealth services.
Behavioral
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How to Prevent a Healthcare Staffing Crisis
The Covid-19 pandemic scrambled the business models and labor-market dynamics for many industries, but probably none as dramatically and directly as healthcare. Incredible, sustained demand coupled with regional disparities, political complications, and cultural challenges have left the healthcare industry on life support, especially regarding staffing.
Healthcare workers are burned out and are quitting in huge numbers. Two-and-a-half years of relentless patient need, an inadequate workforce,
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Why The Stakes are Higher for Hospitals When It Comes to Data Loss & Inadequate Storage Infrastructure
According to the World Economic Forum, hospitals produce around 50 petabytes of data per year. And with 6,039 hospitals in the US alone, that amounts to a sizeable amount of data requiring secure storage. Data consists not only of confidential patient medical records but also of operational data retained by US hospitals such as personal and financial information.
This ever-increasing amount of patient data and growing risks associated with its loss, mean the stakes have therefore never been
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Apple Adds Medication Tracking to iPhone. How Will It Impact The Specialty Patient Journey?
Imagine visiting your doctor’s office. Instead of swiping a copay card and filling out a paper form by hand, the receptionist says, “We take Apple Health.” You wave your iPhone over a digital kiosk, instantly uploading your current medical record and insurance information. Your copay is then deducted from a health savings account. Voila! The doctor will see you now.
This scenario is no longer relegated to the distant future.
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Debunking 3 Common Myths About Healthcare Revenue Cycle Partnerships
The healthcare industry is facing unprecedented challenges, including severe labor shortages. According to a recent study, more than nine in 10 health systems and physician groups are experiencing a workforce shortage in revenue cycle management (RCM), with many of those reporting vacancies in over half of their RCM roles. This is one of the many reasons why there has never been a better time for health systems to think outside the box for solutions, including an RCM partnership. Often, when
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AI ‘s Role in Drug Discovery: Separating the Hype from the Hope
Forecasting the influence that artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning technologies will have on the future of healthcare has created a cottage industry in the hype. From the overzealous aspirations of IBM’s Watson Health initiative to the inclusion of AI on Gartner’s 2021 Hype Cycle at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” so much noise has been made around AI/machine learning in healthcare that it can be difficult to appreciate the current impact of these technologies on drug discovery,
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Diagnosis: EHR Avoidance Syndrome
If you’ve read the healthcare IT trade press recently, you’ve no doubt seen stories about the clinical usability of EHRs and how it can be improved. When you look at the issue closely there are, ultimately, two approaches to “breaking the usability barrier” of these systems:
1. Provide EHR users with instant access to relevant clinical information for any condition a patient presents. This information should be connected to clinically responsive workflows that mirror the way physicians and
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