The importance of the No Surprises Act (NSA) cannot be overstated, as surprise medical bills have long been burdensome for patients in the U.S. healthcare system. In fact, more than half of all U.S. consumers have received an unexpectedly large medical bills. The purpose of the No Surprises Act is to prevent surprise out-of-network bills, often for emergency services. For example, if your appendix bursts while at work, you would be rushed to the nearest hospital for an emergency
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Is It Finally Time for Hospital-at-Home or is Time Up?
All the signs point to a bright and expansive future for hospital-at-home programs, which have been growing steadily since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) created the Acute Hospital at Home waiver program in November 2020. As of March, nearly 100 health systems and more than 200 hospitals in 34 states had been approved for the program. Meanwhile, Forrester predicts the number of hospitals delivering acute care at home will triple in 2022. The reasons why are compelling: a study
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Innovative, Non-Invasive Technologies Advanced Earlier Detection & Monitoring of Liver Disease
Leveraging technological advances to facilitate new ways of engaging patients and integrating non-invasive technology into a liver disease program not only serves to improve individual outcomes and reduce costs but also strengthens the financial performance of health systems and provider organizations that include this approach to testing. At a time when America’s hospitals and physician groups face lost revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a pressing need for reducing costs while
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Your Room is Ready: How to Recapture Health System Revenue by Solving “The Motel Problem”
Healthcare leaders attempting to regain some of the revenue lost during the COVID-19 shutdowns now face a formidable challenge. The American Hospital Association estimates that U.S. hospitals and health systems lost $202.6 billion in just the four months from March 1 through June 30—roughly $50.7 billion per month. Many variables feed into the overall financial impact for individual healthcare organizations, of course—including geographic location, local ordinances, specialty designations,
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Hospital Sustainability Demands that Revenue Integrity Move Front and Center
Razor-thin operational margins coupled with substantial and ongoing losses related to COVID-19 are culminating in a perfect storm of bottom-line issues for U.S. hospitals and health systems. A study commissioned by the American Hospital Association (AHA) found that the median hospital margin overall was just 3.5% pre-pandemic, and projected margins will stay in the red for at least half of the nation’s hospitals for the remainder of 2020. The reality is that an increase in
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COVID-19 Underscores Why Certain Aspects of the American Healthcare System Should Change Forever
In the late 1940s, the United Kingdom was busily reassembling country and what remained of the empire in the aftermath of World War II. Among many revelations, the war had convinced Britain’s leaders of the need to provide healthcare for all in the event of calamity upending the basic functions of a civilized society. With that, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was born. In 2020, all perspectives about quality and the time it takes to see a provider aside, the NHS remains quite popular
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Social Distancing for Medical Devices: 5 Steps to Clinical Network Segmentation to Thwart Cyber-Attacks
Since the beginning of 2020, cyber-attacks have spiked by 300%. As members of the world's most targeted industry, healthcare organizations like hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and distributors of medical equipment are more at risk now than ever. Even if an attack isn't directly targeted at connected medical (or, Internet of Medical Things: IoMT) devices, it can spread through a hospital’s internal network and infect equipment used to diagnose and treat patients such as IV pumps, patient
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Shoring Up the Healthcare Supply Chain: 4 Lessons From The COVID-19 Pandemic
In December 2019, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response told a House committee that “supply chain issues were among the most significant challenges to preparing for an influenza pandemic as well as other infectious diseases.” A few months later, healthcare systems across the country and around the world are face-to-face with that harsh reality, as many of the largest healthcare suppliers are unable to fully meet the growing global demand for personal protective equipment
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AHA, AVIA Launch Free COVID-19 Digital Response Pulse to Support Members on Front-Line
What You Should Know: - Today the American Hospital Association (AHA) and AVIA, a digital transformation partner for healthcare organizations across the country, announced the launch of the COVID-19 Digital Response Pulse. - This online tool, free to AHA members, will enable 5,000 hospitals across the country to determine the types of digital tools they need immediately to confront COVID-19 clinically and operationally and provide guidance on how they can scale the new solutions they
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Jvion Launches AI-Powered Social Determinants of Health Solution
What You Need to Know: - Jvion launches Social Determinants of Health solution enabling healthcare organizations to align community resources to identify gaps and social barriers to care. - Jvion’s Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) solution is an analytics layer, featuring an interactive map built on Microsoft Azure. - Requiring only demographic data, healthcare organizations can drill down from zip code to census tract, block, and individual-level risk to better understand the
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