Florida’s plan to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada — designed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and endorsed by President Donald Trump — has tasted its first bitter pill. No private firms bid on Florida’s $30 million contract to set up and operate a drug importation… Read More »Florida Fails to Attract Bidders for Canada Drug Importation Program
San Diego-based diagnostics startup Cue Health won a $481 million from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense to produce more coronavirus tests. The company received an emergency use authorization in June for its rapid molecular test.
What You Should Know: – Innovaccer unveils new risk adjustment solution to help providers better segment their population to refine the risk scoring process and improve coding accuracy and efficiency, thereby improving performance on risk-based contracts. – The solution utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural… Read More »Innovaccer Unveils Risk Adjustment Solution For Improved Coding Accuracy
Roland Therriault, President, InSync Healthcare Solutions Since COVID-19 emerged as a major health threat, virtual care has taken off. As many as 46% of patients reported in late April that they had used telehealth to replace a canceled healthcare visit in 2020, while 48% of… Read More »Getting Beyond the Telehealth ‘Stop-Gap’ Mentality
Gerry Miller, Founder & CEO at Cloudticity The coronavirus pandemic accelerated telemedicine exponentially as patients and doctors switched from in-person visits to remote consultations. Health providers rapidly scaled virtual offerings in March and April and traffic volumes soared to unprecedented levels, with practices “seeing 50… Read More »3 Telemedicine Security and Compliance Best Practices
HHS will renew its contract with TeleTracking Technologies for another $10.2 million. Earlier this year, HHS controversially shifted Covid-19 data collection to the company from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would normally handle data collection.
The investigation resulted in charges against more than 345 defendants for more than $6 billion in alleged fraud losses. Roughly $4.5 billion of that was connected to telemedicine, the Department of Justice said.
What You Should Know: – Anthem extends the use of doc.ai’s platform and portfolio of privacy-first technologies and artificial intelligence software services to drive the personalization of Anthem’s digital assets and create improved value for users. – doc.ai’s product offerings are deployed on its cloud-agnostic… Read More »Anthem Expands Relationship with doc.ai to Power Digital Health Offerings
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will update data measuring physician use of health IT systems, as well as physician burden and interoperability.
New rules by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services would penalize hospitals and laboratories that report Covid-19 data. Hospitals would be required to report the number of confirmed or suspected Covid-19 patient, occupied beds, and availability of ventilators and other critical supplies.
What You Should Know: – Bridge Connector raises $25.5 million in Series B funding to advance interoperability layer for healthcare organizations as demand for integrated health data intensifies during COVID-19 pandemic. – The investment will support the growth of Destinations, the company’s new integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS)… Read More »Bridge Connector Lands $25.5M to Expand Healthcare Integration Platform
A U.S. district judge blocked a rule by the Department of Health and Human Services that would end anti-discrimination provisions protecting transgender patients. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Frederic Block said that the rule violated a recent Supreme Court decision protecting LGBTQ workers’ rights.
After terrorists slammed a plane into the Pentagon on 9/11, ambulances rushed scores of the injured to community hospitals, but only three of the patients were taken to specialized trauma wards. The reason: The hospitals and ambulances had no real-time information-sharing system. Nineteen years later,… Read More »COVID Data Failures Create Pressure for Public Health System Overhaul
What You Should Know: – HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will award up to five 5 cooperative agreements under the Strengthening the Technical Advancement and Readiness of Public Health Agencies via Health Information Exchange (STAR HIE) Program. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today issued a Notice of Funding… Read More »HHS Announces Investments for STAR HIE Program to Support State and Local Public Health Agencies
In a heated exchange late last month on CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper pressed Adm. Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services assistant secretary who oversees COVID testing efforts for the Trump administration, on why the government isn’t requiring commercial labs to… Read More »Could Labs That Test Livestock Ease COVID Testing Backlog for People? Well … Maybe.
Several federal agencies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have indicated their interest in expanding telehealth coverage after the federal emergency period ends. But to do that, they’ll need the help of states and Congress.
The executive order would call on the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a new pilot payment model for rural hospitals, and would set up a task force to improve broadband infrastructure in rural communities.
Federal watchdogs are once again setting their sights on perceived improper billing practices by home health agencies. In an audit report published last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that stronger oversight of Low Utilization… Read More »OIG: CMS Could Have Saved $192M with Stronger LUPA Oversight
Healthcare IT consultants’ work involving health records may expose them – and their provider and payer clients – to regulatory, legal, financial, and reputational risk. These risks are potentially higher in the COVID-19 era, with many of their employees working from home and accessing sensitive… Read More »Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the COVID-19 Era
A bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday would permanently lift site restrictions for Medicare patients to access telehealth. During the pandemic, several restrictions on where telehealth visits could be conducted and what services were eligible were temporarily lifted.
What The Health? · The Trump Administration’s War on Fauci Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. Julie Rovner Kaiser Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s Stories Erin Mershon STAT @eemershon Read Erin’s Stories Alice Miranda Ollstein Politico @AliceOllstein Read Alice’s Stories Paige… Read More »KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The Trump Administration’s War on Fauci
Julie Rovner, KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, on Wednesday joined Rob Ferrett, host of “Central Time” on Wisconsin Public Radio, to discuss the Trump administration’s announcement that hospital data on coronavirus cases will no longer be routed to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention… Read More »Listen: A Bureaucratic Shuffle for Hospital COVID Data
What You Should Know: – Fenway Health has been selected as the pilot site to participate in the Advancing Standards for Precision Medicine (ASPM) project. – The ASPM project is focused on how healthcare providers can systematically identify the socio-economic factors that may impact the… Read More »HHS Taps Fenway Health as Pilot Site for Precision Medicine Project
“First off, it’s in statute already in HIPAA that preexisting conditions are covered.” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, on July 9, speaking at a virtual summit sponsored by The Hill newspaper One of the most popular features of the Affordable Care Act is… Read More »Azar Says Federal Law Had Preexisting Conditions Covered Before ACA. Not So Much.
March 17, 2020, may well be remembered as the day the telemedicine revolution finally took off. Telemedicine and Telehealth‘s adoption, fast-tracked by Coronavirus/COVID, will create profound changes in how healthcare services are provided — while also spawning new healthcare marketing opportunities. Telemedicine & Telehealth: Innovation &… Read More »
