Building alternative revenue streams source will play a bigger role in healthcare providers’ strategies, according to a new study. Ninety percent of hospital and health system executives surveyed indicated that new revenue streams were an urgent priority expected to yield a return in the next three years, a new study from Boston-based Partners Health Care […]
The entrepreneurs behind Sift Healthcare are using predictive analytics (AI) to crack the code on unpaid medical bills, helping health facilities work smarter when managing budgets. Last month, Alabama’s Georgiana Medical Center closed its doors, making it the 13th Alabama hospital to close in eight years. Seven of the 13 shuttered hospitals served rural communities. In […]
Complications of chronic kidney disease (CKD) include early death and heart disease. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects 15 percent of United States adults, or 37 million people, according to a recent statement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The following are some basic facts about CKD; specifically, it is: More common […]
A new collaboration between the AMA and UnitedHealthcare will work to address the social and environmental factors that affect patients’ health by standardizing data collection on their social determinants of health (SDOH) to help address individuals’ unique needs that often go unmet. The two organizations are supporting the creation of 23 new ICD-10 codes related […]
GET OUT YOUR 2019 CPT® CODE BOOKS. YOU HAVE SOME CODE CHANGES TO MAKE. Effective July 1, 2019, the American Medical Association (AMA) is adding 21 new lab codes and deleting one in Appendix O, Multianalyte Assays with Algorithmic Analyses and Proprietary Laboratory Analyses. Deleted 0057U Oncology (solid organ neoplasia), mRNA, gene expression profiling by […]
CPT modifiers help payers understand all of the distinct services and procedures physicians perform. As the scope of practice for today’s internists continues to expand, these modifiers are also increasingly required to ensure accurate payment, says Toni Elhoms, CCS, CRC, CPC, director of coding and compliance at RT Welter & Associates Inc., a healthcare consulting […]
The U.S. healthcare industry has a $1 trillion opportunity to cut costs and reduce waste, according to a 2015 Harvard Business Review analysis. While there are various areas waste accumulates, costly data reconciliation is a prominent problem for hospitals and health systems. Change Healthcare defines data reconciliation as “the process of compiling information across companies […]
In October 2015, physicians across the United States transitioned from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Ninth Revision to the tenth revision (ICD-10-CM, the US version of the World Health Organization [WHO] ICD-10). Although the ICD-10-CM was a new concept for physicians in the United States, the international variant has been available since […]
Value based payment models are undoubtedly the future of health care. The number of commercial and governmental ACO contracts alone increased by an average of 63% annually from Q1 2011 to Q1 2018, according to a Muhlestein et al. analysis of Leavitt Partners’ data. Though commercial payers have been slower to adopt other models that […]
Doctors are fond of complaining that they didn’t go to medical school in order to practice business, but independent physicians do spend much of their time on their practices’ finances. That requires mastering revenue cycle management (RCM), the financial process practices use to administer all the functions associated with claims processing, payment, and revenue generation. […]