What You Should Know:
- More than 1500 Stanford faculty and alumni announced the launch of StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force featuring 70+ StartX Med Innovators with medical breakthroughs for the prevention, diagnostics, and treatment of coronavirus mobilize efforts to fast-track public health needs during the pandemic.
- The StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force will collaborate on outreach to government agencies, regulatory bodies and healthcare systems in the interest of public health for
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Public Health
Blue Shield of CA Offers COVID-19 Screener and Emergency Response Assistant
What You Should Know:
- Blue Shield of California offers COVID-19 Screener and Emergency Response Assistant (COVID-19 SERA) to help handle anticipated surge of COVID-19 patients.
- The COVID-19 SERA is developed by GYANT can be customized for each health system's emergency response plan, and it is updated in real-time with latest guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO).
Blue Shield of California is offering a new digital tool
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Coronavirus Drives Teladoc’s Daily Virtual Medical Visits Up 50%
What You Need to Know:
- In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Teladoc Health reports that its daily virtual medical visit volume has spiked 50% over the prior week.
- Teladoc Health has provided approximately 100,000 virtual medical visits to patients in the United States in the past week.
Virtual
care provider Teladoc Health
announced that the company is experiencing unprecedented daily visit volume in
the United States as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues
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Vivify Health Launches COVID-19 Screening, Self-Isolation and Monitoring Pathways
What You Need to Know:
- Vivify Health has announced that availability today of new COVID-19 Screening, Self-Isolation and Monitoring Pathways for Vivify+Go mobile solution to providers at non-cost.
- This enables low-risk patients or those with mild symptoms to use their mobile devices to self-screen for COVID-19 by answering a series of questions that follow the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines.
- The self-screening helps providers scale their
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CTA Releases Virtual Care Guiding Principles, Led by Livongo, Validic, Others
What You Need to Know:
- Consumer Technology Association (CTA) released a new set of industry-led guidelines on virtual care, convening health tech leaders like Doctor on Demand, Livongo, Validic, and BioIntelliSense.
- The virtual care principles offer core guidelines and practices across patient engagement, standards of care, quality, continuity of care, prescribing and privacy and security.
- While virtual care is not a panacea, in the midst of an outbreak, evaluation, triage and
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6 Coronavirus (COVID-19) Considerations for Telehealth Providers
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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How Health Plans Can Prepare Their Members for Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Any time there are fears of an outbreak, you can be sure of one thing: Purveyors of disinformation will take advantage of these fears by spreading false, often harmful messages.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is no different, and as what may become the first widespread U.S. public health crisis of the social media era, is likely to be more susceptible to disinformation and conspiracy theories than previous events. For example, some of the more notable falsehoods about COVID-19 include that
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AMA to Fast Track New CPT Code for Novel Coronavirus Test
What You Need to Know:
- AMA announces it will fast track CPT code development for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test to bolster a data-driven response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
- The CPT Editorial Panel will manage the expedited process including the creation of a test description to accompany the code and the effective date of the code.
- According to the CDC, there is a total of 647 confirmed cases of COVID-19 resulting in 25 deaths in the United
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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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CareFirst Will Cover Medically Necessary Diagnostic Tests for COVID-19
What You Need to Know:
- CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield announces steps to expand access to coronavirus (COVID-19) care for its members
- CareFirst will waive prior authorizations for diagnostic tests and for covered services that are medically necessary for any members that are diagnosed with COVID-19.
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst) announced it is taking action to ensure that its members seeking testing and treatment for coronavirus can swiftly access the right care in
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