A new report from CMS found that providers used Z codes to report social determinants of health (SDOH) for 467,136 Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries in 2017, which is nearly 5% more than in 2016. CMS notes that this represents 1.4% of the 33.7 million total Medicare FFS beneficiaries...Read More »
CMS announced that the Medicare website will soon be combining its eight separate Compare tools into one, standardized and simplified format, reported HealthLeaders Media. Currently, CMS uses a combination of the following platforms on https...Read More »
Physicians spend an average of 16 minutes and 14 seconds per patient encounter using electronic health records (EHRs), according to a study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Of this time, 33% was chart review, 24% documentation, and 17% ordering functions were the...Read More »
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) voted unanimously to recommend hospitals receive a 3.3% raise in 2021.
CMS has already scheduled a 2.8% raise to hospitals for inpatient and outpatient services, but MedPAC recommends that congress increase net payments even more....Read More »
A new study estimates that sepsis is at least partially responsible for roughly 11 million global deaths in 2017 out of 56 million total deaths. This means sepsis was at least partially responsible for 20% of the worldwide deaths that year. Undertaken by a dozen collaborators at the University...Read More »
According to a recent Black Book survey, eighty percent of healthcare leaders said their use of data analytics for decision-making and strategic planning is "negligible," reported HealthLeaders Media.
The research found that 95% of hospitals and physician group executives have...Read More »
UnitedHealthcare (UHC) announced that starting April 1, they will use a proprietary software program to evaluate all professional claims submitted for emergency department visits with the Level 5 evaluation and management (E&M) code 99285.
According to guidelines from the American...Read More »
Last week, CMS released the final 2018 performance data for the Quality Payment Program (QPP). These final QPP performance results show significant success and participation in both the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM).
