As the novel coronavirus outbreak continues, the federal government and commercial health insurers have taken significant steps to increase Americans’ access to treatment and testing. In the past week, the federal government and private insurers have issued a number of guidance documents expanding coverage and payment requirements in an effort to minimize the spread of the virus.
As with any changes in coverage and reimbursement, healthcare providers offering telehealth services should
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Health and Human Services
Using Health IT to Preserve Antibiotics and Fight Drug-Resistance
In its latest report on antibiotic resistance, the CDC revealed that infection rates for many threat pathogens are stagnant or in a nominal decline. While this is promising news, there are still a startling 2.8 million cases of drug-resistant infections predicted this year, which will result in an estimated 35,000 deaths. What’s more, the speed at which some patients are developing resistance to last-resort antibiotics – those that are often reserved for special scenarios and designed
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Patient Data Liberation: HHS Releases Final Interoperability & Patient Access Rules
What You Need to Know:
- HHS finalizes interoperability rules that will implement interoperability and patient access provisions of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) and support President Trump’s MyHealthEData initiative.
- The ONC Final Rule identifies and finalizes the reasonable and necessary activities that do not constitute information blocking while establishing new rules to prevent “information blocking” practices (e.g., anti-competitive behaviors) by
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HIMSS Names The 6 Most Influential Women in Health IT
HIMSS names
Iris P. Frye, Kim Garriott, Dr. Lucienne Ide, Eva Karp, RN-BC, Dr. Geeta Nayyar,
and Tressa Springmann as the most influential women in health IT.
This week, HIMSS announced its Most Influential Women in Health IT, an annual recognition celebrating women striving to harness the power of information technology to drive healthcare transformation. The award winners will be honored at HIMSS20 in Orlando next month and will join other innovators, leaders, and entrepreneurs at the
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4 Digital Health Tools for Combating Opioid Addiction in 2020 & Beyond
The human and economic statistics surrounding the opioid epidemic are staggering. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 11.4 million people have misused prescription opioids, and more than 130 people die daily from opioid-related drug overdoses.Moreover, the Society of Actuaries found that the total economic burden of the opioid crisis in the United States from 2015 to 2018 was at least $631 billion. The organization attributed nearly one-third of that cost to extra
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House Lifts Ban on Funding of NPI System: 7 Implications to Know
The House of Representatives recently voted to lift a ban prohibiting funding for a national patient identifier system (NPI) designed to improve patient matching.
So, what does that mean moving forward?
Let’s dive into the implications of the House’s vote.
What Will an NPI System Do?
Now that the House has lifted the ban on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) providing funding a national patient identifier, it’s important to become familiar with exactly what an NPI system
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What Will It Take To Build The Uber of Medical Records? 3 Critical Steps to Consider
Our healthcare system has struggled with data silos and clumsy, antiquated data sharing practices forever and a variety of stakeholders will need to work together to achieve anything close to an “Uber of medical records.”
It’s well documented and understood that the healthcare industry has historically been slow to adopt new technology while other business sectors have welcomed it with ease. For example, while most industries abandoned the fax machine in the 1990s, as recently as 2017, fax
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Analysis: November 2019 Health IT M&A Activity, Public Company Performance
– Healthcare Growth Partners' (HGP) summary of Health IT/digital health mergers & acquisition (M&A) activity, and public company performance during the month of November 2019We did a doubletake when we noticed all of the HGP healthcare indices climbed approximately 10% during the month of November. Year-to-date, the S&P 500 is up over 25% and the HGP healthcare indices are all hovering in that range. In the two month period since September, when talk of universal healthcare reached
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How Innovations in Regional Nerve Blocks Are Helping Anesthesiologists Combat the Opioid Epidemic
Opioid abuse — as you know — has now become a national crisis, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating a $78.5 billion annual burden on the American economy. What can be done?
Advancing better practices for pain management is a key strategy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) plan for addressing this epidemic. This is where healthcare providers come in. If we can start our patients along a track that does not include the heavy use of opioids for
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HHS Launches $1.5M Second Phase of KidneyX Prize Competition to Redesign Dialysis
- KidneyX launches the $1.5 million second phase of the Redesign Dialysis prize competition.- Redesign Dialysis Phase 2 seeks prototype solutions or components of solutions, that can replicate normal kidney functions or improve dialysis access.- The competition calls on researchers, innovators, patients, and investors with expertise in nephrology, biotechnology, bioengineering, and medical devices to submit solutions.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the American Society
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