With a new administration looking to reshape healthcare policy and additional special enrollment periods already underway, now is the time to ensure Medicare enrollment systems are ready for the unpredictability, and potential opportunities, ahead. While Medicare is the fastest growing segment of the healthcare industry, it is also highly competitive, expensive to operate in, and riddled with complexities and regulations to navigate. Health plans don’t have room to make a misstep when it comes
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Medicare Insurance| Regulatory, Policy, Patients Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Q1 2021 Health IT/Digital Health PC/VE, M&A, IPOs/ SPACs Activity
The first quarter of 2021 has been one of investor optimism as the vaccine rollout continues ahead of expectations and economic activity begins to accelerate in response. Within the Health IT industry, the already strong investment and M&A trends seen in 2020 have only accelerated. Over the course of the quarter, we observed $7 billion in private equity and venture capital investment across 158 companies. By comparison, Q1 of 2020 saw $3.2 billion and 127 investments. Health IT
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Time and Goals Should Drive Your Post-COVID-19 Care Management Strategy
COVID-19 forced many health systems to reassess and reconfigure their care management processes and staffing models so that clinicians could better manage more of their acute, complex, and otherwise healthy patients remotely to limit in-person care. During this time, health systems likely learned quite a bit about remote care management and discovered that they could still deliver high-quality care without their patients needing to visit their providers in-person as often. With two
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How a Virtual Care Mindset Leads to Greater Patient Acceptance and Sustainable Telehealth Growth
There's no question that the demand for telehealth and virtual care has grown exponentially over the last twelve months. With that growth has come a fundamental shift in the attitude toward virtual care. No longer do patients and providers take a "let's try it" approach—now, it's "we must do it." This is evidenced by the number of telehealth claims filed. In 2020, telehealth claims skyrocketed, increasing by 2,938% in November 2020 versus November 2019 as patients demanded virtual options and as
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Could ‘Hospitals Without Walls’ Be the New Normal for Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring?
The statistics surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be startling, despite the ever-growing mental and physical fatigue that we’ve all experienced living through this frightening, intimidating and unprecedented era. More than 125 million cases worldwide have resulted in a death toll closing in on three million, while in the United States alone, 30 million reported infections have resulted in a death toll that reached 550,000. (1) One thing that can be said for certain about
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Boost Operational, Clinical and Financial Performance with Good Data
There’s an old adage that every challenge is merely an opportunity in disguise. COVID-19 highlighted the healthcare industry’s ongoing challenge with producing clean, standardized data. As the industry looks to rebound from the severe financial impact of the pandemic, there’s a renewed urgency among hospitals and health networks to improve operational efficiency. The push toward greater operational efficiency – in a time of constrained budgets and resources – has accelerated
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How the Pandemic is Accelerating the Shift to Alternative Care Delivery Models
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how we interact with one another, with businesses, and with the world around us. From social distancing to hand sanitation to remote working, its impact on society is immense. And among the various industries that are experiencing significant change as a result of the pandemic, healthcare tops the list. Supply chain disruptions, crowded ICUs and exhausted medical staff has taken a toll on hospitals and clinics — and they’ve had to pivot rapidly to new
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Strive Health Raises $140M for Value-Based Kidney Care Platform
What You Should Know: - Strive Health, a Denver-based provider of value-based kidney care today announced $140 million in Series B funding with Alphabet’s independent growth fund, CapitalG, as the lead investor. Strive has more than doubled its presence in regional markets and grown its employee base by more than 600% in the last year. This funding will further increase that momentum. - Currently, there is $410 billion of unmanaged kidney disease
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Unite Us Nabs $150M, Reaching $1.6B Valuation to Address Social Determinants of Health
What You Should Know: - Unite Us, the tech company creating coordinated care networks nationwide, has just announced a $150M Series C round of funding led by ICONIQ Capital, bringing its valuation at $1.65 billion. - Unite Us is leading the care transformation movement towards whole-person health with its core product, Unite Us Platform, an outcome-focused coordination software sconnecting community-based organizations with health care providers, health plans,
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Quality Virtual Care Matters for Patients – Even More Than Telehealth
The COVID-19 pandemic made healthcare visits over video or phone the norm, likely turning telehealth into a permanent fixture within the U.S. healthcare system. In fact, the majority of patient access leaders at large hospitals believe 20-30 percent of appointments will happen over video in 2021, according to recent research. Further, an overwhelming portion of those leaders – 95 percent of them – believe the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should continue to reimburse for video
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