On Monday, CMS Secretary Alex M. Azar II announced the launch of CMS Primary Cares—an initiative with two sets of new payment models that will enroll a quarter or more of traditional Medicare beneficiaries and a quarter of providers in arrangements that pay for keeping patients healthy, rather than ordering procedures.New Primary Care Payment Models1. The Primary Care First path will allow smaller primary care practices to be paid a simple, flat stream of revenue for each patient. When a patient
Read More
Medicaid | Medicaid Patients | Medicaid Reform | Regulation, Policy, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
How Can Health System Command Centers Reduce Cost Growth?
Scott Newton, DNP, RN, MHA, EMT-P, VP of Care Model Solutions at Teletracking In our decentralized care landscape, health system command centers (HSCC) are coordinating high-quality care through complex and integrated delivery networks (IDN). Recently, command centers were recognized by KLAS and Gartner as a new model of care delivery with the potential to impact clinical, financial, and operational outcomes. That means in addition to improving routine health system operations—and increasing
Read More
Value-based Care in America: A Table View of State-by-State Initiatives
Value-based care programs are flourishing across the U.S., with a seven-fold increase in the number of states implementing such initiatives in the past five years, according to a new Change Healthcare report. The report, Value-Based Care in America: State-by-State is the second national study of state healthcare payment programs that reveal 48 states have now implemented value-based care or payment programs, 50% of those programs are multi-payer in scope, and just four states have little or no
Read More
Cerner, naviHealth to Launch Medicare BPCI Advanced Offering
Cerner and naviHealth, a provider of post-acute management has announced an expanded relationship with plans to create a new offering for the Medicare’s Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced program (BPCI Advanced). After working together for five years to streamline electronic workflows for post-acute discharge, Cerner and naviHealth anticipate launching the new value-based care offering to support BPCI Advanced, with an initial focus on the next CMS launch of the program in January
Read More
CareCloud EHR Integrates With Google Cloud Healthcare API for FHIR
CareCloud, an EHR and practice management platform for high-growth medical groups, announced today that it is integrating its omnidirectional data transfer process with Google Cloud Healthcare API. The integration will enable payer data to be securely, rapidly and cost-effectively shared and used in real-time with existing payer and provider systems handling activities such as member eligibility verification, claims history and claims processing.Integration Creates FHIR Bridge in Google
Read More
The Cost of Medical Device Innovation: Can The U.S. Keep Pace?
Over the last six years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a number of highly innovative medical devices that have revolutionized cardiovascular care. These novel devices have provided advanced treatment options, improved quality of life and extended longevity for patients. Unfortunately, reimbursement has often failed to keep up with many of increasingly expensive treatment options, according to a new report released by Vizient. The report, The cost of medical device
Read More
AHIMA, AHCA Partner to Train Skilled Nursing Facilities in ICD-10 Coding to Prepare for New Patient Driven Payment Model
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) has announced a collaboration with the American Health Care Association (AHCA) to provide in-depth coding and clinical documentation improvement (CDI) training programs. The goal of the collaboration is to help professionals in skilled nursing facilities (SNF) prepare for the upcoming payment reimbursement change.New, Value-based Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) Beginning October 1, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Read More
Blue Cross NC, Duke Health Form New Company to Offer Medicare Advantage Plan for Seniors
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and Duke University Health System have together formed Experience Health, a new health insurance company to offer a Medicare Advantage Plan in 2020. Jointly owned by Blue Cross NC and Duke Health, Experience Health brings together two of the most trusted and innovative names in healthcare to create a locally owned and operated non-profit health plan.Why Experience Health?Blue Cross NC and Duke Health formed Experience Health to take advantage of the
Read More
NTT DATA Services Acquires Cognosante’s Healthcare IT Consulting Division
NTT DATA Services, a provider of global technology services has acquired Cognosante Consulting, LLC, the consulting division of Cognosante, a provider in health information technology solutions and services for federal and state health agencies.Cognosante Consulting OverviewCognosante Consulting provides IT strategy, planning, quality assurance and project management for state health and human services (HHS) agencies undergoing large-scale Medicaid and related human services IT and business
Read More
Telemedicine: A Potential Remedy to Rural Healthcare Ills?
Mary Tolan, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Chicago Pacific Founders
The symptoms are innocuous enough at first. They begin with simple fatigue; readily explainable by a day spent working under the hot sun. The thirst sets in next, then the persistent hunger. The farmer brushes his symptoms off as simple work-caused exhaustion, and rationalizes that anyone would be tired, hungry, and thirsty after a long day in the field - he's getting older, after all. He thinks little of it until his
Read More
