Emad Rizk, M.D., President, CEO & Chairman of the Board, Cotiviti
Healthcare organizations continue to rely heavily on data analytics to try to improve COVID-19 outcomes and public health. Since the novel coronavirus became widespread in the U.S., healthcare data scientists have leveraged clinical and claims data to pinpoint which underlying conditions put patients at higher risk of complications from COVID-19. Health systems are mining clinical data to predict surges in COVID-19 cases
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
As Telehealth Surges, Are Seniors Being Left Behind?
Anne Davis, Director of Quality Programs & Medicare Strategy at HMS
A global health crisis has thrust us into a scenario in which lives quite literally depend on the ability to virtually connect. Telehealth has rapidly emerged as a vital tool, enabling continuity of care, allowing vulnerable individuals to access their physician from home, and freeing up resources for providers to treat the most critical patients. The acceptance of telehealth and expansion of covered services for the
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Despite COVID-19: Providers Should Not Lose Sight of MIPS Compliance
Courtney Tesvich, VP of Regulatory at Nextech
When 2020 began, no one anticipated that complying with the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)—the flagship payment model of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Payment Program (QPP)—would look so different halfway through the year. Like many other things, the COVID-19 crisis has delayed, diverted, or derailed many organizations’ reporting efforts and capabilities. Lower procedure volumes, new remote work
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Billions in Federal Provider Relief Funds Have Been Distributed. Now Come Auditing and Compliance.
Anna E. Stevens, CPA, is the Partner-in-Charge of Health Care Services at Weaver,
Of the $175 billion in federal Provider Relief Funds (PRF) allocated to healthcare providers, $125 billion has been accepted by hospitals and healthcare providers. The cash infusion was designed to cover costs related to COVID-19 related care. These targeted payments were earmarked for preventing, preparing for, and responding to the Coronavirus, solely for reimbursement of healthcare-related expenses or lost
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Ensuring Telehealth Providers’ Virtual Care Dollars Make Sense
Don Godbee Don Godbee, Mobile Solutions Architect at Stratix
Telehealth and virtual care are not brand-new phenomena suddenly cobbled together as a rapid response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the average US patient could be forgiven for thinking that it is. Indeed, virtual visits to care providers and remote patient monitoring have been available for quite some time, delivering two key benefits:
- Providing a platform to address cost-efficiencies and accessibility to
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COVID-19: How Hospitals Can Create Better Inpatient Bed Capacity through Math
Dr. Pallabi Sanyal-Dey, Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF & Director of Client Services at LeanTaaS
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, key elements of hospital operations such as managing inpatient bed capacity, and access to ventilators and PPE have taken center stage. The general public got a crash course on what hospitals need in order to function successfully when disaster hits, and daily news and discussions were centered around ICU bed capacity as cases accelerated
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5 Steps for Interoperability Excellence for Healthcare Providers
Shanti Wilson, Consultant, Freed Associates
As if 2020 couldn’t be any more challenging for healthcare providers, new federal rules on interoperability and patient access, granting patients direct access to their healthcare data, begin taking effect in 2021 and will continue into 2022. These rules, while ultimately beneficial to patients, bring an additional level of operational complexity to many revenue-stressed healthcare organizations.
If anything, the 2020 pandemic has
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5 Myth-Busting New Hospital ADT Notification Requirements
Claudia Williams, CEO of Manifest MedEx
When doctors know their patients have been to the hospital, they can act fast to provide needed support. Widespread use of hospital event notifications is associated with all kinds of health benefits, including a 10 percent decrease in readmissions for Medicare beneficiaries. These event notifications are one of the simplest, easiest (most-bipartisan!), and most impactful changes we can make to improve patient outcomes in U.S. healthcare.
To this
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The Modern Approach to Acquiring Healthcare IT
Cheryl Rodenfels, Healthcare Strategist, Nutanix
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the shortcomings of today’s hospital and healthcare IT infrastructure, with many healthcare organizations quickly adopting the latest and greatest technology to support remote operations. However, in the scramble to adapt, many IT leaders did not ensure that the acquired technology integrated well with legacy systems – resulting in underused components and wasted costs. As we enter into a new era
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Virtual Engagement During COVID Pushes Paradigm Shift for Physician Training and Patient Care
Shalini Shah, MD is Vice-Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care, and Enterprise Director of Pain Services, UC Irvine Health
The dominant presence of COVID-19 has not meant the absence of cancer, ear infections, heart attacks, chronic pain, or other illnesses that need attention and care. Physicians have continued treatment for all types of maladies, and physician training has continued as well. But this treatment and this training look much
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