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.
Five years into the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare climate of the United States has continued to evolve and improve. While there are some long term changes required that have just begun to take shape, many changes brought about by the ACA are immediate gratification. Changes to Medicare and Medicaid have helped many Americans gain coverage that they previously wouldn’t have had access to. While the system is imperfect, there’s plenty of positivity to consider since it launched in 2010.
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!
Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid proposed adding codes to cover telepsych services including routine visits, consultations and psychiatric assessments completed via telehealth services. The field of telepsychiatry has become a hot zone for start-ups, which are eager to develop software that boasts usability, confidentiality and smooth interfaces to incorporate video, sound and instant messaging between patients and providers. The same could be said of any telehealth programs – but perhaps the foray into psychiatry via computer is the most interesting of all.
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.
The Affordable Care Act will allow 30-40 million new patients to have access to hospital services – particularly emergency room services. ERs are already notoriously overrun and patient dissatisfaction about wait times and care quality are abound. With even more patients expected to grace the department than ever before, how can your ED prepare?
Thanksgiving is a time for full plates…and full stomachs. This year, we wanted to share this helpful infographic with a few tips to make your Thanksgiving feasting
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.
Accountable care transition is still a hot topic in healthcare – and it’s likely to remain so for many years to come as the reform continues. For many organizations, taking the leap to accountable care status might seem inadvisable – is it just a fad? Are these changes here to stay? If they are, is my organization ready? There are a lot of questions to ask, but organizations who are in this stage of their accountable care deliberations should rest assured that they aren’t alone – many organizations all across the U.S. are asking themselves that same question.
Accountable care has certainly made some important strides in terms of addressing how physicians are paid for the services they provide, but for accountable care to work fully, we need to change the way healthcare providers practice medicine. Accountable care needs to be framed as accountable medicine – because the only way for the changes proposed by the ACA to take full effect and become sustainable, long term practices is to start at the source and change the way that we practice medicine.
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