News

INDIANAPOLIS — (October 29, 2020) — hc1, the leader in critical insight, analytics, and solutions for precision health that power high-value health care, announced today that Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, will be the keynote speaker during its Precision Health Virtual Summit scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 17 and Wednesday, Nov. 18. This special two-day summit hosted by hc1 in partnership with Becker’s Healthcare will bring together healthcare leaders and experts to focus on the changes our care delivery system needs as it transitions from fee-for-service to value-based care reimbursement models.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected nearly every aspect of our lives today. Many of us now have new challenges that come with working from home, homeschooling, and sheltering in place. 

As a part of our series about how busy women leaders are addressing these new needs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Liz Goar, CEO of NPC Creative Services.

Thrive Global»

The last few years have ushered in significant progress on the opioid crisis containment front. Acknowledging decades-long misinformation shortfalls, negligence, and improper prescribing patterns, the healthcare industry took important steps on national and state levels to get out in front of devastating statistics.

A March 2020 report suggested the needle was finally pointing in the right direction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a 13.5% decrease in opioid overdose deaths from 2017 to 2018.

Unfortunately, that report was quickly overshadowed by the global pandemic that brought the nation to its knees. Opioid misuse, like many other critical healthcare priorities, took a back seat to COVID-19. The fallout is notable. A recent analysis points to a spike in opioid overdose cases by 18% since the start of the pandemic.

Health care is realizing the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) across a broad and seemingly endless range of use cases. The opportunities for using advanced technologies to accelerate labor-intensive processes touch everything from research and operations to supply chain and point-of-care decision making.

Data-hungry revenue integrity and billing compliance functions are no exception. AI tools such as machine learning, natural language search, and anomaly detection are fueling new and expanded insights into revenue integrity, billing compliance, and quality assurance to advance process improvement initiatives. And not surprisingly, the value proposition of these tools is growing rapidly amid COVID-19 as health care organizations try to maximize reimbursements against notable challenges such as revenue shortfalls and rapidly changing regulations.

ForTheRecord»

MINNEAPOLIS – September 21, 2020 – In a newly published KLAS® Research Spotlight Report, 100% of Carrot Health customers interviewed said they were satisfied or highly satisfied with the Carrot MarketView® software and analytics platform, and would both recommend and purchase it again. The report, “Carrot Health: Using Analytics to Drive Outcomes in SDOH,” is based on detailed feedback from Carrot Health customers in the payer and health plan space on how well the company’s social determinants of health (SDoH) insights help them drive outcomes – delivering a more targeted level of care to their patient populations.

Wellesley, MA — September 21, 2020 –– Hayes, makers of the industry’s leading integrated compliance and revenue integrity platform for the nation’s premier healthcare organizations, announced today that CTO Ritesh Ramesh won Silver in the 8th Annual CEO World Awards^®, Executive Achievement of the Year for Information Technology Services category. Hayes also took Bronze for Team of the Year in the inaugural COVID-19 Business Response category in recognition of its work tailoring the company’s flagship MDaudit Enterprise platform to help hospitals optimize pandemic-related reimbursements and attain billing compliance.

MINNEAPOLIS – September 14, 2020 – Carrot Health CEO Kurt Waltenbaugh will share insights into ways public health and public safety are influenced by barriers and inequities, and how social determinants of health (SDoH) continue to shape health outcomes, during the AHIP’s online National Conference on Medicare, Medicaid and Dual-Eligibles. “Addressing Upstream Community Health for SDoH Interventions” takes place at 3:30 p.m. ET on September 14.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected nearly every aspect of our lives today. Many of us now have new challenges that come with working from home, homeschooling, and sheltering in place.

As a part of our series about how busy women leaders are addressing these new needs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Liz Goar, CEO of NPC Creative Services. 

Authority Magazine»

Finding new revenue opportunities and avoiding claims denials has taken on greater urgency as hospitals and other healthcare organizations face growing reimbursement shortfalls in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is why Hayes, makers of the industry’s leading integrated compliance and revenue integrity platform for the nation’s premier healthcare organizations, has launched Revenue Optimizer to equip healthcare organizations with actionable insights that help eliminate barriers to revenue integrity and manage overall financial performance.

Wellesley, MA — August 27, 2020 –– Finding new revenue opportunities and avoiding claims denials has taken on greater urgency as hospitals and other healthcare organizations face growing reimbursement shortfalls in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is why Hayes, makers of the industry’s leading integrated compliance and revenue integrity platform for the nation’s premier healthcare organizations, has launched Revenue Optimizer to equip healthcare organizations with actionable insights that help eliminate barriers to revenue integrity and manage overall financial performance.

THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic has underscored that the field of epidemiology, which focuses on discovering the causes of disease outbreaks and tracing the spread of illness, is an academic discipline with real-world relevance. When policymakers propose solutions to the COVID-19 outbreak, they often base their recommendations on advice from epidemiologist.

Epidemiologists, sometimes referred to as "disease detectives," are trained to recognize, control and mitigate the proliferation of disease within a population and often work in academia, government or the nonprofit sector. They also sometimes work for corporations that require guidance on occupational and environmental health and safety measures. 

U.S. News and World Reports»

Little by little, we’re working towards a National Patient Identifier.  For those not familiar with the topic, the US government in a section of the federal budget has banned HHS from even working with the private sector to develop a national patient identifier.  However, the House of Representatives thanks to leadership from Representative Bill Foster (D-IL) and Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) have passed a bill to remove this ban.

“On behalf of our patients and caregivers, Intermountain Healthcare applauds House passage of the Foster-Kelly Amendment and looks forward to a future in which patients can accurately, safely, and consistently be matched to their health data across the care continuum,” said Ryan Smith, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Intermountain Healthcare.

Reimbursement is becoming increasingly complex for today’s providers. And while it is fair to say that a certain amount of missed revenue has always been part of the bottom-line equation, healthcare organizations simply cannot afford to leave money on the table in the current market climate.

Already operating within razor-thin margins, today’s hospitals and health systems must now address current and future reimbursement and revenue risks introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent study, Strata Decision Technology estimated that 97% of health systems will lose an average of $1,200 per coronavirus case, or as high as $8,000 in some instances—even with the 2% Medicare payment increase.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. – July 31, 2020 – Just Associates, Inc., a nationally recognized leader in patient matching and health information data integrity and management, is lending its voice to Patient ID Now in support of efforts toward a nationwide patient identification strategy. The newly formed coalition of healthcare organizations is dedicated to eliminating regulations that create barriers to public-private collaboration on solutions to the intractable problem of inaccurate patient identification.

Carrot believes in enabling a future where each of us has no barriers to leading our healthiest lives. Unfortunately, health in this country is distributed very inequitably. In the Twin Cities we have communities with a 30-year gap in mortality: Medina at ~90 years, Frogtown in St. Paul at ~60 years.

That distribution is often based on lines drawn by racism. Take food insecurity. Those who struggle to get enough to eat report the highest levels of poor health – exacerbating nearly every medical condition.

In Minnesota, the ‘average’ person has much better access to food than the national average – only 75% of the national risk. Until we look at the data by race – in North Minneapolis, a family has 1.6x the likelihood of food insecurity, compared to the nation as a whole.

Medical Alley»