The open-enrollment period that recently concluded for U.S. health plans was the first since the expiration of pandemic-linked changes to how Star Ratings were calculated. This is a period of major transition for the industry, with some health plans struggling to maintain their previous ratings and plan participants, who are now accustomed to home-based testing and treatment, expecting those services and features to continue. Fortunately, new technology can help health plans boost plan
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Liver Cancer Awareness – Here’s What You Need to Know in 2023
By the end of 2022, nearly 42,00 new cases of primary liver cancer will be diagnosed in the United States. In fact, liver cancer incidence rates have more than tripled since 1980, marking an increased need for better detection and diagnosis.
We might not talk about liver cancer as much as we do breast or lung cancer, but it’s a real threat to millions of Americans – and we need to continue spreading awareness.
Early detection is especially critical in treating liver cancer.
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Why We Need Deflection to Reduce Overdose Deaths (and Drug Diversion) in 2023
The United States is still reeling from a devastating opioid epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that death from drug overdoses reached just under 108,000 between 2020 and 2021. That is enough to fill over four professional baseball stadiums.
This staggering number of overdose deaths is due to many factors, including the sale of counterfeit medications and illegal drugs that often contain deadly doses of illicitly manufactured fentanyl and other
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The Patient Journey Tech Stack: 10 Pharma Predictions for 2023
The complexity of demands on Market Access teams has increased in recent years, between introducing innovative therapies targeting smaller populations and higher bars from Payers and PBMs.
Now, drug manufacturers are bucking up. According to the IQVIA Institute, the prescription abandonment rate has reached 27 percent, or $76 billion annually, in specialty drugs alone. This squandered revenue has led manufacturers to increase their focus on the complex, nuanced patient journey.
As a
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5 Things to Consider Before Implementing a CAPS System in 2023
Core administrative processing systems (CAPS) serve as the center of the healthcare payer architecture and are essential for efficient business operations. These systems are needed to support administrative and transactional processing and are a significant investment in technology. Selecting a CAPS system isn’t a single purchase, but rather an ongoing partnership that requires maintenance to ensure the system remains up to date to support industry and regulatory changes. Last year, 99% of
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Security and Compliance Oversight Will Reduce Business Communication Risk for Healthcare in 2023
Cyber attacks on healthcare organizations are by no means just as simple as hackers going after healthcare data for the sake of obtaining critical data of patients, their families, or the organization's employees. A growing number of these attacks are executed by nation-states and other organized criminal organizations, which have the financial resources and the expertise to launch ever-more sophisticated and costly assaults against these organizations. Some of these attacks have been traced
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The Evolution from Hearing Aids to Wellness Devices
Here’s what we know from decades of research: Hearing loss affects health and well-being, but people with hearing loss are often reluctant to wear hearing aids. Of course, they’re doing themselves no favors. But when they do finally opt for hearing assistance (on average, about seven years after they learn they need it), we also now know that the longer people wear hearing aids — throughout the day, for instance, rather than just in certain situations — the healthier they tend to be. Better
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Why Speech Therapy is an Effective Treatment to Counter the Health Challenge of Social Determinants of Health (SDoH)
Over recent years, the virtual speech therapy delivery model has intersected with a host of healthcare disruptions -- value-based care delivery, the COVID-19 pandemic and the influence of social determinants of health (SDoH) have reshaped healthcare delivery. There has been a seismic move away from a provider-centric delivery model to a patient-centric model. This innovation has been made much easier with the ever-present catalyst of technology and its increased patient acceptance.
Speech
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Why The Future of Lateral Flow Testing is Digital
Lateral flow immunoassay tests (or LFTs, for short) have been in use for decades, becoming an indispensable tool within diagnostics’ (Dx) practice, as well as a growing range of applications outside healthcare. LFT's capacity for delivering fast turnaround—rapid detection in less than 20 minutes—from sample to result has made LFTs central to the shift moving triage and primary care closer to the patient at point-of-care (POC) and point-of-need (PON).
Being intuitive for the user,
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Why IT and EHR is Critical for Traveling Nurses
Across the country, hospitals are experiencing staffing shortages, and two years of COVID-19 have taken their toll on the industry.
The pandemic didn’t cause the staffing shortage. However, it exacerbated a growing problem as more nurses opted to retire or leave the profession.
Amid the pandemic, many healthcare professionals burned out while others left the workforce altogether. As a result, many hospitals and physicians’ offices struggle to hire and retain nurses.
The American
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