With the advent of Bundled Payments for selected procedures and conditions, providers and institutions must collaborate to meet both cost and quality targets. No longer will each provider bill and receive payment separately for services when these bundles become mandatory—as most experts believe will happen. All providers participating in a set “bundled” price must focus […]
Public Health Reporting for Specialists: Avoiding Penalties Isn’t the Only Reason to Comply
At the heart of CMS’s Public Health Reporting Requirements for Meaningful Use is a basic premise: EMR technology must facilitate tracking of public health trends and long-term outcomes improvement. That is why all providers in the Meaningful Use program, regardless of specialty, are now being required to engage in public health reporting to avoid a […]
Want Real Performance and Outcomes Improvement? Track Interventions and Results Over Time
Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks—Euripides For many providers, reviewing performance data is just another distraction from practicing medicine, rather than a valued tool for making better medical decisions. And who can blame them? Performance or outcome data reviewed in isolation, as static results, aren’t […]
Making the Most of Meaningful Use: How the “Specialized Registry” Can Secure Your Future in MIPS
Good health care requires insight. That’s the message under Medicare’s new Medicare Meaningful Use rules for 2015 through 2017, giving providers the option to use a Specialized Registry to meet the Public Health Reporting Objective. The new rule also lays out how a Clinical Data Registry (CDR) will fit into this and other MU objectives […]
Are Your Specialists and ACO Ready for the Referral Revolution? Part 1
The practice of physician-determined referrals to specialists is deeply embedded in the culture of medicine. But it no longer works under Value-Based Health Care. A revolution in referrals is underway, one that will dramatically change physician alignment and engagement in ACOs and other Pay for Performance models. Outcome measures can distinguish the performance of one specialist […]
Placebo v Nocebo: How to Test Methods of Physician Engagement in Population Health
The Holy Grail for value-based health care is to improve patient quality and cost outcomes, while stabilizing or reducing annual aggregate payouts for insurance and government benefits. By holding physicians and health systems accountable, the theory goes, providers will engage with patients in a process leading to better status and lower costs. The key word […]
Should Wearable Tech Be Tied to Patient Outcomes? Benefits and Risks of Sharing Personal Digital Data
How many steps did you take today? If you’re a Fitbit fan, you know precisely, and you’re not alone. Digital health devices were a $5 billion-plus growth industry last year, and the range of gadgets is expanding rapidly, from ear devices that measure blood pressure, respiration rate and oxygenation level, to iPhone cases that record […]
How Medicare is Moving from PQRS Basics into Value-Based Care: Improving Outcomes with Plan of Care
For a number of PQRS measures, Medicare requires that the provider document a Follow-up Plan or Plan of Care to demonstrate that appropriate interventions have been made to reduce risk. This has caused confusion and consternation among some of our clients who may not have clearly documented the follow-up plan or may disagree with Medicare […]
How to Energize Your Providers to Measure and Improve Outcomes
It’s no wonder that so many physicians feel threatened by the mention of outcomes measurement. All too often, outcomes are used as a club to punish providers who seem to weaken overall group performance. Or outcomes are packaged and applied in a way that doesn’t provide actionable information—which can seem like a waste of everyone’s […]
No More Blame Game: How to Use Patient Outcomes Measurement to Boost Quality and Provider Performance
Fair or not, if your patients don’t do well, your physicians can be tagged as poorly performing providers. But there are ways to change the dynamic for your organization by effectively using patient outcomes measurement to structure and drive a quality program that benefits both patients and providers. Tracking the health and status of patients—“how […]