As the coronavirus pandemic continues to upend health care in the U.S., pressure has mounted on CMS to adjust its efforts to drive providers to adopt risk. In response, at the end of last week CMS announced a carve-out of COVID-19 patient expenses from certain reporting requirements. In this round, ACOs were on the receiving…
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released an interim final rule to remove spending associated with COVID-19 patients from performance calculations for the Medicare Shared Savings Program. CMS is extending its mitigation of shared losses back to January 2020 and is providing flexibility for accountable care organizations to stay in their same risk track next year to…
Hospital groups largely cheered a raft of regulatory changes made by the Trump administration to expand telehealth and waive penalties for expanding capacity to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the changes Thursday, which include making it easier for hospitals to establish drive-thru and parking lot testing facilities and helping accountable care…
The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc with the health care system. And, Sleep Medicine is no exception. Interestingly, while there have been many new problems to solve, the majority of the impact has been to accelerate the pace of already established trends. One of the first changes has been the inability of…
DOWNLOAD SLIDES The flatten the curve approach isn’t enough, it’s time to Redefine the COVID-19 curve by using Remote Patient Monitoring and Telehealth solutions to manage thousands effectively while avoiding the surge of patients from overwhelming your ACO. Join Vivify Health on this webinar to learn how ACOs can navigate through COVID, screen, and virtually…
CMS on Thursday finalized a wide range of temporary Medicare and Medicaid changes in response to the COVID-10 pandemic, including some big wins for accountable care organizations. State-approved Medicare providers can now order COVID-19 serology tests, and Medicare will pay providers to collect specimens for COVID-19 testing under the physician fee schedule and outpatient prospective payment system….
When the COVID-19 pandemic began and it became clear telehealth would be necessary for physicians and nurses to treat patients remotely, CMS boosted rates for telehealth visits so they matched rates for in-clinic visits and would sustain providers during the pandemic. CMS also relaxed its guidelines about the type of telehealth visits it would cover,…
A large number of the beneficiaries present multiple complex chronic health conditions with a high coexistence of mental health conditions making the coordination of care more complex and inefficient. Visibility into centralized accountable care organization (ACO) data across AICNY’s network from its population health vendor, HealthEC, revealed extraordinarily high emergency department utilization rates among the…
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the healthcare industry dramatically. We all have loved ones affected by COVID-19 whether they are on the front-line fighting for us or they are patients trying to fight off the virus themselves. A significant focus has deservedly gone towards disease prevention and progression, but little time has been devoted…
COVID-19 continues its inexorable, exponential spread here in the U.S. Hospitals in New York City, now accounting for more than 7 percent of confirmed cases worldwide, have less than a quarter of the critical equipment and supplies needed to serve an overwhelming surge of patients. Our health care providers are facing impossible choices, even considering universal Do…