Here at BHM we are predicting that 2015 will be a year of change for many healthcare systems. With this change, healthcare leaders will be faced with many challenges, including complying with new federal regulations and making strategic moves towards better care. We've compiled a list of the five biggest challenges we foresee healthcare leaders facing this year.
In the ever-changing healthcare industry, the C-suite executives always have to be on their toes. But the best leaders are making some smart, calculated moves to stay on top of their game in 2015. These moves are not always executed easily, but those who make them help their organizations perform better and provide a higher level of patient care.
Remote healthcare is still relatively new and has been slow to be adopted on a large scale, but many who have taken advantage of telemedicine services are finding that the financial aspect is well worth the transition. While telepsychiatry can't completely replace an in-person visit with a Psychiatrist, it can be a valuable option for areas where access to those types of professionals are limited at best.
As 2014 draws to a close, many of us in the healthcare industry are looking back at the year we’ve had and reflect on what worked, what needs to change and what we can expect for 2015. As an industry, healthcare saw a continued move towards accountable care, shared decision making, value-based purchasing and patient satisfaction measures. Buzzwords abound, there was a lot for everyone - providers, patients and payers - to juggle this year. And it looks like the trend is apt to continue into 2015.
As part of BHM’s partnership with The Doctor’s Channel, Anthony Grimaldi, BHM’s Senior Vice President Provider/Hospital Division, explains the changes to the way that providers must deliver healthcare.
There are few aspects of healthcare that are more controversial, confounding and frustrating than payment reform. It’s hard to imagine that there was ever a time when patients just paid the doctor for their services. Since that payment method created economic disparities in access among the rich and the poor, several reforms later we find ourselves somewhat on the opposite end of the spectrum: more patients than ever can have access to care, but the process for compensating physicians hasn’t been able to keep up. Doctors are rendering services without receiving payment - and their practices can’t sustain on that type of arrangement!
As part of BHM’s partnership with The Doctor’s Channel, Anthony Grimaldi, BHM’s Senior Vice President Provider/Hospital Division, speaks about telemedicine and advancing patient care.
With so many options for healthcare accreditation, many healthcare leaders are asking themselves, "Which accreditation(s) is best for my organization?" One of those accreditation options is through The Joint Commission (formerly Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations or JCAHO), which conducts unannounced inspections and ensures quality standards industry-wide.
Unless you’re a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse, you may not remember that Psychology 101 course you took in medical school, but if you want to improve patient satisfaction, you might want to revisit it. When we focus on medicine as being an entirely “hard science” and we focus on test results, data and what we can palpate or visualize, we are leaving out a very important facet of the patient’s healthcare experience - feelings.
October 1st of last year, CMS cracked down on readmission rates for hospitals nationwide, handing out millions of dollars in penalties. The Affordable Care Act put these measures into place in order to curb the problem of readmissions, which are not only costly, but reflect an overall poor population health in the U.S. - especially for those patients with chronic conditions. For FY ‘14, 2% was withheld from payments per the guidelines for penalties. By 2015, the rate of withholding for penalties is expected to top 3%. In addition to the higher payments, there will also be additional diagnoses included in the readmission criteria list - it began with heart attacks, pneumonia and heart failure and will now expand to include COPD and complications from chronic lung conditions.