Primary care practices have had to contend with the possibility of closure due to the pandemic. The conundrum comes in figuring out the best way for physicians to save their practices while still providing patients optimum care. The answer may lie in value-based care.

Primary care is arguably more important than ever, yet it has become increasingly evident that the traditional fee-for-service model, based solely upon actual practice visits, has become untenable. The safest option for many patients is to stay at home to stay healthy, so these physicians and healthcare practices now find themselves facing an uphill battle to remain in operation.

Value-based practices have managed to keep their doors open, take care of their patients, and even prosper in these challenging times. Instead of concentrating solely on patients that walk into the practice, value-based care is more about ensuring patients remain healthy and out of the hospital. With value-based care, practices can, for example, reach out to a patient to contact them and evaluate their care beyond the doors of the practice as well as keep in touch in the event the patient does have to go to the hospital emergency room.

The key is breaking the misconception that fee-for-service is the perfect way to pay for primary care. Primary care should be about the value created, where care is more person-based than transactional.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products, managed care solutions, value-based expertise, Nextgen EHR utilities, MIPS consulting, and more. CareOptimize has helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

The telehealth boom as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked discussions on how to reach the smooth integration of telehealth into electronic health records. Some telehealth platforms provide agnostic integration with a number of EHR systems, whereas some EHRs have their own telehealth solution in-house.

What works for a certain system may not necessarily be the best solution for another. There are many considerations to take into account. when choosing an EHR provider or considering a move to another.

You may wish to begin by understanding whether the vendor for whom you are operating currently provides a unified solution, or have other solutions been developed along the way. Where do you begin, and is it a fully integrated platform versus one vendor with several platforms to offer? A trade-off study should also be considered: What do you lose in feature functions with a single vendor versus integration gain? The third consideration is the case of intended use: More specialized treatment may mean having to find a more specialized solution.

At CareOptimize, we offer a rich array of EHR utilities designed to assist clients and staff in increasing their productivity, including free utilities such as our Document Auto-Completion templates and the Coronavirus Crystal Report.

To read more, please visit https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/when-integrating-ehr-and-telehealth-one-size-doesnt-fit-all.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products, managed care solutions, value-based expertise, Nextgen EHR utilities, MIPS consulting, and more. CareOptimize has helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

The rapid expansion of telehealth throughout the United States as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed providers to continue to support their patients while reducing business disruption. The growth of telehealth has also encouraged businesses to leverage technology, find new ways to provide medical care, and lower costs.

Although telehealth offers tremendous provider opportunities, there are also considerable risks. The recent surge of telehealth services has significantly prompted changes to federal and state regulations and requirements. The tangled network of federal and state regulations make legal compliance for telehealth providers exceptionally challenging, reinforcing the need to have robust compliance programs and measures in place.

Providers should make sure written policies that specifically require compliance with relevant federal and state laws, regulations, and requirements have been implemented. Policies enacted prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 should be evaluated and tweaked as needed. To oversee these changes, practices should name a compliance officer, who can also take care of allocating resources to carry out compliance program integration. Along with training all staff, annual compliance program audits should be undertaken to measure compliance activity and its effectiveness. Furthermore, staying on top of evolving laws and regulations is key in maintaining successful and current enforcement policies in place.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products, managed care solutions, value-based expertise, Nextgen EHR utilities, MIPS consulting, and more. CareOptimize has helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

This week, we’re back with an all-new CareOptimize Insights Webinar highlighting changes coming with CPT E/M codes.

The code changes will go into effect on January 1, 2021, so it’s time to get your providers and coders ready. This comprehensive webinar explains how to navigate all of the Evaluation and Management changes and what they mean for reimbursement, including which codes to use when, which codes belong in conjunction, and what can be reported. There’s also a 10-step guide from acdis.org on how to successfully transition to the 2021 guidelines.

The Insights2020 CPT EM Code Changes for 2021 is up for viewing on the CareOptimize YouTube channel as well as on our Insights page. Remember you can watch all of our webinars by visiting https://www.youtube.com/careoptimize.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products, managed care solutions, value-based expertise, Nextgen EHR utilities, MIPS consulting, and more. CareOptimize has helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth was largely used as a secondary tool by clinicians and patients, and mostly for test results delivered via email. Regulatory restrictions helped make for slow adoption. Now that telehealth has been widely implemented, patients and clinicians have quickly discovered its more widespread usefulness. Positive results, especially with virtual doctor visits, ensure telehealth will likely remain a healthcare staple for the foreseeable future.

The rapid implementation of telehealth revealed its many benefits, changing the ways many providers practice. From pediatrics to behavioral health, several common specialties embraced the extensive uses of telehealth. For example, Seattle Children’s hospital was already using it in a limited capacity in the early 2000s but has since seen massive growth. They find it particularly useful when dealing with mental health issues among children and adolescents.

With geriatrics, telehealth creates a considerably greater challenge. Many patients are on numerous medications or suffer from multiple chronic conditions. Others lack even the basic technical abilities. Initiatives to bring this demographic on board are crucial, as these patients are also at significantly higher risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus. Practitioners have doubled down on ways to reach out to these patients not only to help facilitate virtual visits, but also to ensure they have sufficient food, a means of transport, and even housing.

While primary care may be the most obvious fit for telehealth, specialties such as obstetrics, orthopaedics, and even physical therapy have altered their practices dramatically to incorporate telehealth components. To read more, please visit https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-telemedicine-post-coronavirus-world-common-specialties.html.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products, managed care solutions, value-based expertise, Nextgen EHR utilities, MIPS consulting, and more. CareOptimize has helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

COVID-19 has forced healthcare practices to find ways to keep their doors open and their patients served. Telehealth has been one of the most successful. A practice based in Blue Ridge, Georgia quickly adapted to the changes by instituting a telehealth system and achieving success.

Blue Ridge Medical Group initially found itself facing difficulty with ongoing patient care as businesses were forced to close. The practice was in dire need of a solution that adhered to HIPAA laws and allowed patient scheduling as well as video conferencing and billing.

After researching telemedicine technology and exploring service vendors, Blue Ridge Medical Group found an EHR-embedded platform that addressed many of its challenges, including initiating video calls with patients to provide ongoing care. Furthermore, patients were also able to use the system with minimal hassle despite many having limited tech skills.

Blue Ridge Medical Group has seen additional perks with their new telehealth program, including being able to document EHR data during a virtual visit by communicating with the patient, ensuring they don’t feel as if they are being ignored.

Telehealth has also proven to be a major plus for older patients that may not be able to physically visit the office due to certain health conditions or being too sick to leave home. These solutions allow patients to attend the all-important visits, allowing continued management of chronic health conditions and/or potential faster recuperation.

CareOptimize provides its own telehealth solutions designed to keep your practice running smoothly. Please visit our website www.careoptimize.com for more information.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products, managed care solutions, value-based expertise, NextGen EHR utilities, MIPS consulting, and more. CareOptimize has helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

An electronic health record (EHR) is perhaps the costliest investment in technology a hospital or healthcare system makes. Most healthcare agencies are hesitant about investing in new technology after the high expense of an EHR. As a result, they use their EHR analytics functionality to attempt to conduct analytics across the organization. How are they doing with such an approach? A Definitive Healthcare survey suggests there may be room for improvement.

The survey reveals healthcare systems using only EHR analytics components are more challenged by technology, whereas consumers who use in-house or analytics-specific systems are less technologically challenged. Organizations that do not use EHR analytics cite similar challenges in technology.

Analytics within an EHR often have limited functionality for results necessary to discover ways to improve outcomes. Because the developers of analytics-specific platforms are well-versed in data analytics and how to create value from results, those products often elicit better, more useful information, especially when combined with the EHR analytics.

Barriers to the use of analytics-specific platforms fall into three categories: cost, interoperability with existing technology, and leadership buy-in. Studies have shown these platforms create significantly more value by reducing cost, improving patient outcomes, and offering a better overall view. The value of results elicited often outweighs the barriers.

The CareOptimize Nextgen EHR page features several products we’ve developed to assist healthcare organizations with easing the process of navigating the rapid changes in healthcare technology.

To read more, please visit https://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/how-to-derive-value-from-the-data-in-your-ehr-0001.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products, managed care solutions, value-based expertise, next-generation EHR utilities, MIPS consulting, and more. CareOptimize has helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

Telemedicine has been experiencing immense growth as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Practices as well as patients have more information available to them than ever as telemedicine moves to the forefront of healthcare. The next CareOptimize Insights webinar is all about helping you making sense of this new frontier.

This upcoming webinar exclusively discusses telemedicine, including relevant topics such as how it can assist your practice, the challenges it presents, the relaxation of regulatory matters, and where it is headed.

In regard to COVID-19, remember CareOptimize currently provides a pair of free tools to assist with simplifying the monitoring and reporting of coronavirus cases. The template allows you to log in data on patients who test positive or are exhibiting symptoms, then streamline notifications on those patients to the CDC, state health agency, and/or local health department. The report shows all high-risk patients in your organization who should be considered for additional screening or other preventative measures. Bookmark our Insights page or our YouTube channel to view all of our webinars.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products and we’ve helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. We provide managed care solutions as well as products like coding modules, Nextgen EHR utilities, and more. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.

A relief bill aimed at COVID-19 relief would grant providers an additional $100 billion in aid for expenses related to healthcare and lost revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, passed by the House on the 15th, is a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill that seeks to supply further direct payments to an extensive array of coronavirus-affected agencies, businesses and even people. Healthcare organizations and agencies would receive a substantial part of the funding. The legislation also makes improvements to accelerated and variable payment plans under the Medicare terms and an improvement in prospective inpatient prospective payment system outlier compensation under patients that have received a COVID-19 diagnosis. The federal matching rate for Medicaid states is now rising by 14 percent and $75 billion has been set aside to support coronavirus testing and contact tracing.

Ever since the execution of a pair of coronavirus relief packages, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, hospitals have been petitioning for more federal government funding. Collectively, the packages provided a Provider Relief Fund of $175 billion.

To read more about the HEROES Act, visit https://revcycleintelligence.com/news/latest-coronavirus-relief-bill-seeks-another-100b-for-providers.

This update is provided by CareOptimize. We provide healthcare management consulting services and products and we’ve helped numerous healthcare organizations succeed for more than a decade. We provide managed care solutions as well as products like coding modules, Nextgen EHR utilities, and more. For more information, please call 855.937.8475.