CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner announced that she is stepping down from her post in February, agency officials confirmed Friday. Her replacement, former UnitedHealth Group executive Andy Slavitt will now serve as principal deputy administrator. Tavenner, 63, spent more than three years with CMS and faced critical criticism for the disastrous roll-out of HealthCare.gov in fall 2013 and Medicare operations. Tavenner's email to staff did not offer any explanation for her
Read More
Healthcare Policy Regulation & Reform | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Should Physicians Tailor Patient Engagement Based on Age?
New patient engagement trends from TechnologyAdvice Research reveals digital engagement is a growing factor in how patients choose healthcare providers.
Quality of care has long been a primary factor in choosing a healthcare provider, but convenience and communication are also becoming key considerations for patients. Still, many physicians do not appear to be offering the digital engagement services that can meet those demands.
The Importance of Digital Services
According to a new
Read More
Kyruus Partners with One of Nation’s Largest ACO Programs
Kyruus, a provider of Patient Access & Referral Management Solutions, announced today that it has partnered with Providence Health & Services, the third largest not-for-profit health system in the United States, to optimize access across its ACO network and provide an improved level of engagement to its consumers across the Northwest. This expanded engagement builds off the successful deployment of ProviderMatch for the Swedish Medical Access Center for the Providence-Swedish Health
Read More
Healthcare Leadership Council Joins the Coalition for ICD-10
The Healthcare Leadership Council, a coalition of healthcare chief executives from all disciplines within the U.S. healthcare industry, is the latest organization to join the Coalition for ICD-10 and advocate for U.S. adoption of the ICD-10 coding standard in 2015. The Coalition for ICD-10 promotes the critical importance of ICD-10 to improving quality measurement, public health surveillance, clinical research, and healthcare payment through research, education, and advocacy.
Representing
Read More
AMA: 10 Key Issues for Physicians to Watch in 2015
For the medical professional, 2015 presents another year of changes and continued challenges. From meaningful use struggles to Medicare physician payments, the AMA has identified the following 10 key issues for physicians to monitor in the year ahead:
1. The administrative load and competing regulatory programs.
According to the AMA, time and expense devoted to administrative and regulatory requirements is one of the top frustrations to physicians.
In 2015, the AMA noted they will be
Read More
How Will The Primary Care Model Evolve in 2015?
You may not be ready to admit it even to yourself, but you know it’s changing. Permanently. Some say it’s for the better. Others say it’s for the worse. Most don’t really care much one way or the other. After all, health care has been evolving and changing over thousands of years, and the experts best positioned to evaluate the health care turmoil of our times are yet to be born. Those of us who are now in the eye of the storm have an understandable tendency to analyze high velocity changes,
Read More
Premier, Inc. Joins the Coalition for ICD-10
The Coalition for ICD-10, a broad-based healthcare industry advocacy group, today announced the addition of Premier, Inc. to its member roster. Premier, a leading healthcare improvement company, unites an alliance of approximately 3,400 U.S. hospitals and 110,000 other providers to enable better care and outcomes at a lower cost.
The Coalition for ICD-10 brings together hospitals, health plans, medical device manufacturers, coding specialists, physician office managers, and health information
Read More
KLAS Rates Deloitte Top Firm for ACO Strategy & Readiness
According to a recent KLAS report, Deloitte has been rated the top firm for ACO strategy development and readiness assessment. The report, ACO Advisory Services 2014: Navigating the Unchartered Territory of Accountable Care, evaluates seven firms based on interviews with 41 health care organizations working to implement value-based care models against three categories:
– strategy development
- readiness assessment
-implementation
Key Highlights
The KLAS report gave Deloitte
Read More
10 Myths about Hospital Supply Chain
Jump Technologies, a provider of cloud-based supply chain management solutions for hospitals and healthcare organizations, announced it will take on the challenge of debunking the myths that drive inefficient and wasteful inventory management processes, where there is an estimated $60 billion savings opportunity for the U.S. healthcare industry. Getting a better grip on managing a healthcare organization’s supply and demand will save tons of money to the organization while also increasing
Read More
Coalition for ICD-10 Responds to AMA President Dr. Robert Wah
The Coalition for ICD-10 has published the following response to recent remarks made by AMA president Dr. Robert Wah, in which he compared the AMA's opposition to ICD-10 to the movie Star Wars.
In his recent speech to the AMA House of Delegates, AMA president Dr. Robert Wah characterized the planned implementation of ICD-10 as analogous to the dark forces controlling the galaxy in the movie Star Wars:
“If it was a droid, ICD-10 would serve Darth Vader… For more than a
Read More