What You Should Know: - Walmart and Oak Street Health ink a partnership to launch three joint health clinics in the Dallas-Forth Worth, TX area this year. - Each clinic will offer value-based primary care and urgent care services with a focus on adults on Medicare. Retail leader Walmart announced a partnership with Oak Street Health, a value-based primary care network for adults on Medicare to launch three joint health clinics the Dallas-Forth Worth, TX area. The new Oak Street
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Medicare Insurance| Regulatory, Policy, Patients Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Why EHR Interoperability is Critical for Telehealth
Telehealth has recently taken off as a way to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, but even though telehealth has been around for several years, clinics had difficulty adopting it pre-COVID-19. This caused clinics to not view telehealth as a viable option, and it was often seen as a last resort approach to healthcare. As reducing the spread of COVID-19 became paramount, Medicare and Medicaid were forced to develop telehealth service codes, and clinics were tasked with finding an
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Maximizing Telehealth Success: How to Optimize Operations & Revenue Cycle Management
In COVID-19’s wake, providers’ financial recovery will be crucial yet daunting. U.S. hospitals and health systems stand to collectively lose $36.6 billion between March and June 2020 alone. Physician practices also face serious financial challenges as they recoup revenues that declined up to 55 percent and patient volume that decreased 60 percent. Amid these hardships, telehealth has emerged as a widely accepted vehicle for care delivery – providing a way for healthcare organizations to
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Waystar Acquires Medicare RCM Company eSolutions at $1.3B Valuation
What You Should Know: - Revenue cycle management provider Waystar acquires eSolutions, a provider of Medicare and Multi-Payer revenue cycle management, workflow automation, and data analytics tools at a $1.3B valuation. - The acquisition will create the first unified healthcare payments platform with both commercial and government payer connectivity, resulting in greater value for providers. Waystar, a provider of healthcare payments software, today announced a definitive agreement
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Cone Health to Merge with Sentara Healthcare Totaling $11B in Assets
What You Should Know: - Cone Health has signed a letter of intent to merge with Norfolk, Virginia-based Sentara Healthcare for a combined $11B in assets. - The merger creates one large health system totaling of 17 hospitals – 11 Sentara hospitals in Virginia and one in Elizabeth City, N.C., and five Cone Health hospitals in the area surrounding Greensboro. Cone Health has signed a letter of intent to merge with Norfolk, Virginia-based Sentara Healthcare. The merger will
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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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Telehealth and COVID-19: Overcoming New Challenges for Providers and Payers
Telehealth has quickly transformed the healthcare industry. Rather than scheduling an appointment, waiting up to a few weeks, and going to a doctor's office or another healthcare facility, we can now access many types of care from the convenience of our smartphones. However, telehealth has also brought in its own set of new challenges that must be overcome for it to be successful in the long term. Below, we explore five of the biggest issues telemedicine faces and offer insights on how
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W2O Acquires Discern Health to Strengthen Value-Based Care Capabilities
What You Should Know: - W2O announced today the acquisition of Discern Health, a leading healthcare consultancy based in Washington, DC, and Baltimore, to strengthen its strategic capabilities in assisting clients with critical healthcare policy trends and value-based reimbursement models. - Discern Health brings experts with decades of experience in quality, health care measurement, and payment models to W2O’s analytics-driven, technology-enabled marketing and communications solutions.
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How ADT-Based E-Notifications Can Enable Better Safety for COVID-19 Patients
As COVID-19 continues to impact the country, providers across the continuum face new challenges delivering care and ensuring safety for their patients and themselves. During this period, sharing real-time information about patients’ care encounters across provider types and care settings matter more than ever. In particular, hospitals sharing admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) events with COVID-19 patients’ community-based providers is critical to ensure the best treatment course and
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Call to Action: Restrictions Around Virtual Health Can’t Go Back to “Normal”
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has passed several stimulus packages with the goal of helping employers keep their business in operation while office volume is down and, in some cases, practices are physically closed. The CARES Act, which included the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Provider Relief Fund, for example, has provided some relief to eligible healthcare providers, including low-interest rate loans to help providers pay staff salaries, rent, and other
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