It has been a little more than a year since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or CMS began paying for chronic care management services separately under its Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. The new payment scheme began January 1, 2015. This is something worth paying attention to, since approximately two out of every three patients on Medicare are contending with at least two chronic conditions, according to a recent report from CMS.
The type of medical organization you run has a great deal to do with whether many of your patients will require transitional care management, but TCM is an issue you should stay on top no matter how often it comes up of because industry and government updates can influence the way you do business.
Learn why patient engagement is a necessity and how you can master it within your practice.
With the arrival of every new technological innovation, we have to create new terms to cover the devices and systems we develop and implement. This is especially the situation in the fields of medicine and healthcare, given the pace of developments and the often-crucial nature of the new items being created. A case in point has to do with the terms “telehealth” and “telemedicine.” With so many people using these words without bothering to be precise in their definitions, it’s no wonder that medical professionals and patients alike become confused when confronting either term.
We’re all in this together. The health of individuals is one thing to consider, while the health of an entire population is an entirely different matter and one that medical organizations must always keep in mind when examining and treating patients one at a time.
The following excerpt is from an article found on Revcycleintelligence.com. It was written by Kyle Murphy. ----------------------------------------------------- As organizations transition to value-based care and adapt to the ACA, they will need to enact several changes in order to maintain peak revenue cycle health. Healthcare consumers receive the highest quality of service when operational inefficiencies are reduced and business processes are aligned to the goal of that service. That’s true for consumers, but also for providers, third-party relationships, and other partners who depend on the value that healthcare organizations deliver. In fact, it’s true for internal members of the organization, too.
In a busy practice, you may get so far behind in finishing tasks that you give less attention and time to your patients than you’d prefer. The key to a thriving practice is to make sure you develop a good rapport between staffers and patients. To help you improve the situation, here are five steps to building a successful patient relationship that you can start taking today.
Shocking stories of major data breaches by computer criminals continue to appear in the news, with no end in sight. So many organizations fail to shore up their computer networks or apply the latest in security best practices that hackers from any location in the world with Internet access can penetrate their systems with relative ease.
To err is human, the saying goes, and no matter how careful your employees are at your medical organization, you can count on mistakes arising from time to time. The trick is in setting up procedures and protocols to make preventable mistakes as few as possible. Consider that an overworked staff trying to process too much information in a limited amount of time can grow frustrated, which can lead to even more mistakes.
Foot traffic in your medical practice seems to be declining lately and you are starting to grow concerned that you are not going to get enough business to justify keeping your current staff load. While there can be annual variations, such as more appointments during the cold and flu season, you will want to achieve stable appointment rates and keep your staff as busy as possible. It’s possible that there are some marketing and community outreach tactics that you haven’t yet considered doing. Why not give any or all of the following four methods a try so you can start filling your appointment calendar with more patients?
Your medical organization does not revolve around general practice doctors. Yours is an outfit that focuses on one or more specialties. Just as you wouldn’t try to use a basic graphics program that came free on your computer to make a major work of art, you wouldn’t want to use generic electronic health records software that doesn’t account for the unique services you and your team offer.
