With growing efforts to provide people with information about health care prices, some health care experts have expressed concern that patients may avoid low-price care if they associate price with low quality. However, most Americans do not associate the price of care with the quality healthcare, according to an analysis of survey data published in the April issue of Health Affairs.While health care prices vary widely throughout the country, there is no evidence that higher prices are
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Healthcare Policy Regulation & Reform | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Report: Patient Satisfaction Tanks After 20-Minute Doctor Wait Time
When it comes to waiting for a doctor’s appointment, most patients are waiting 19 minutes, 19 seconds – which is just good enough to keep patients happy with their service, according to Vitals 7th annual wait time report. The report finds positive reviews start to skew negative after patients are left waiting more than 20 minutes revealing the important correlation between wait time and patient satisfaction. For instance, 49 percent of patients who had a 15-minute wait rated their doctor
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Senate & House Committee Leaders Demand Answers on 316 Security Breaches on HealthCare.gov
Republican committee leaders in the Senate and House today asked the administration for information about the 316 security breaches on HealthCare.gov catalogued in a new report released by the nonpartisan government watchdog, the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Between October 2013 to March 2015, HealthCare.gov had 316 security incidents, including 41 which involved personally identifiable information.
The GAO reported that HHS does not have complete records of how many people these
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Perfect Alliance: Patient Engagement and Medical Website Personalization
This post is sponsored by ScienceSoft, an international software development and consulting company with headquarters in the USA (McKinney, Texas) and development centers in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Patient engagement serves an ambitious goal of encouraging patients to care about their health more. Generally, it is considered that only private means of delivering information, such as mobile devices (think smart phones and tablets) and patient portals, can help caregivers reach out to users
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Study: 65% of Patient Satisfaction Attributed to Physician Empathy
65% of patient satisfaction was attributed to physician empathy, according to the study recently published in the Journal of Hand Surgery. The study presented this week at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), links patient-perceived physician empathy with improved outcomes and medical care satisfaction.
In the study, 112 new patients (mean age 51) at the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Orthopaedic Surgery rated personal interaction with
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69% of Providers/Payers Are Uncomfortable with Risks of Value-Based Care
By 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will require 50 percent of payments to be value-based, meaning providers are compensated for healthy outcomes rather than each service provided. According to new research from Xerox, 69 percent of healthcare providers and payers are uncomfortable with the risks of value-based care, and 77 percent agree that some providers are losing money by adopting the approach.
The Xerox survey reveals that healthcare payers and providers
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Consumer Engagement: The Quest for the Holy Grail
Editor's Note: Ryan Rossier is the VP of Product Innovation at digital health firm Medullan that specializes in amazing user experience.
Realizing results by delivering the right information, at the right time, in the right way - remains the elusive holy grail of consumer engagement.
A new study published by Accenture Life Sciences shows that only one out of every five patients is aware of the number and type of therapeutic services available to them after diagnosis. The study found
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Aetna, Mount Sinai To Form Accountable Care Alliance
Aetna and Mount Sinai Health Partners – the clinically integrated network that includes the Mount Sinai Health System and a group of voluntary providers are teaming up to form the form an accountable care collaboration designed to enhance coordinated patient care and lower health care costs.
Accountable Care Alliance Details
Under the three-year agreement, members of Aetna commercial plans who receive care from Mount Sinai physicians will benefit from quality and cost efficiency improvements
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What Is The Financial Impact of Value Based Healthcare for Physicians?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is working hard to transition physicians’ payments from volume to value of services. The current Acting Administrator at CMS is a former top executive at United Healthcare, a commercial health insurance corporation. The previous Administrator at CMS is currently the president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which is the dominant health insurance lobbying group. It may therefore behoove us to rephrase the opening sentence:
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CMS’ Next Generation ACO Model: The True Cost of Healthcare’s Transformation
Will providers taking on more risk produce create cost savings and better healthcare for the underserved? Healthcare experts April Wortham Collins and Dutch Dwight weigh in.
The ACO. It was hailed as the care delivery and payment model that would cure healthcare’s inefficiency ills and financial woes. While we’ve seen some quality improvement from Medicare’s Shared Savings Program, the U.S government has yet to see actual savings. Now, CMS has unveiled a more enticing model for providers to
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