In 2009, hospitals and doctors were given financial incentives to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) through the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) were not eligible for these funds, and were therefore not incentivized like the rest of the healthcare system to implement the technology. The consequence of that differentiation is that the majority of ASCs are still charting on paper, even while the rest of the health
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Patient Experience 2.0: A Shift in Priorities Defined by A Year of the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the healthcare continuum within the past year, creating many roadblocks in the path towards high-quality care delivery. Amid these challenges, we have witnessed a significant shift in patient wants and needs, in addition to heightened demand for accessible, convenient clinical care. Notably, the desire for more care processes to be performed digitally has emerged as a priority among patients. According to a recent survey by Accenture about patient behaviors, 60%
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How COVID-19 Made Employee Safety Work for Employees
Over the past decade, the move toward automated hygiene, cleaning, and sanitation solutions has steadily accelerated and its effective implementation has positively impacted organizations who quickly recognized its potential value. Enhanced productivity, increased worker safety, an opportunity to repurpose labor, and improved water savings are just a few of the reasons why a growing chorus of organizations embraced the automation revolution.
COVID-19 has served as a reminder that
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How Next-Generation Care Will Be More Patient-Focused
Hospital operating margins were hovering in the 2% range before the global pandemic wreaked havoc on providers and payers in March 2020. Even with two “normal” months in 2020, operating margins plummeted 55.6% compared to 2019. Even with CARES funding, margins remained down nearly 17%.
At the same time, demand for healthcare professionals continues to grow, depending on medical specialty and geography. The shortage is especially acute in rural areas. Reasons include an aging and sicker
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8 Key Areas Representing $13.3B in Cost Saving Opportunities for Healthcare Administration
According to the 2020 CAQH Index report, an annual report published by the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare, a study of eight key transactional areas revealed opportunities for cost savings totaling $13.3 billion for medical providers and plans willing to move to fully electronic administrative processes. The CAQH report examined eight key transactions: Eligibility and Benefit Verification, Prior Authorization, Claim Submission, Attachments, Coordination of Benefits, Claim Status
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The Future of Revenue Integrity: From Reactive to Predictive – RCM
Healthcare organizations have witnessed an explosion of new opportunities to extract value from the industry’s treasure trove of data in recent years, with success stories related to using advanced technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning found in every sector.
Revenue integrity is no exception.
Error-prone manual processes that were formerly characterized by painstaking line-by-line analyses of claims are giving way to automation and analytics that
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Cancer Centers: Here’s How We Can Restart Clinical Trials Today
Biopharmaceutical companies developing cancer treatments need to restart the clinical trials shut down or delayed during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Some are holding back, however, due to a lack of confidence that sufficient eligible patients can be recruited and enrolled in the trials. Recruiting patients into a clinical trial was challenging before COVID-19 hit, and it has only become exponentially more difficult. Sponsors also know many patients have been putting off
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Effectively Handling Clinical Denials Amid a Pandemic Backlog of Elective Surgeries
Throughout the pandemic, many hospitals had to delay elective procedures for several months or cancel them altogether. Surgical volumes decreased over 35% in 2020 from March to July. This has led to a projected backlog of elective procedures and surgeries. For example, in orthopedic surgeries such as joint replacement and back fusion, it was estimated the pandemic would generate a backlog of over one million surgical cases. If you multiply that across all the surgical
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HCPs: Breaking Through The Noise with Digital Engagement
In 2020, the pandemic forced a dramatic switch to a 100 percent remote commercial model for the pharmaceutical industry virtually overnight. While many digital technologies had already been evaluated or implemented by pharmaceutical companies, this event accelerated a digital-first approach with many enterprises deploying and scaling new technologies in days; events that would previously have taken months or years.
Today, even individuals that were digital novices a year ago can navigate the
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How Mobile Channels Improve Patient Engagement and Outcomes
The past year’s pandemic struck a painful blow to health organizations’ pre-COVID patient engagement efforts. A recent report detailed fewer patient visits amidst coronavirus fears and stay-at-home orders. People are simply not going into clinics to address non-COVID medical needs. The result is more serious health issues developing, such as cancers being found at later stages and chronic conditions advancing beyond easy treatment options.
As patient engagement strategies ramp up, mobile
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