Interviews

Is the Doctor’s Office Dead? Practice of Primary Care Goes Virtual

by Jacqueline LaPointe

“The doctor’s office is dead,” said Nick Desai, co-founder and CEO of Heal, a virtual primary care company that leverages telemedicine and home visits to connect patients with...

In the Final Hours, Providers Prepare for Repayment of Medicare Loans

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The clock has run out for many providers who accepted advanced payments from Medicare at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For more coronavirus updates, visit our resource page, updated twice...

Beyond the Pandemic: Telemedicine Reimbursement and Health Policy

by Jacqueline LaPointe

In the wake of the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US, policymakers quickly relaxed long-standing healthcare regulations, including telemedicine reimbursement and healthcare fraud prevention...

Efficiency Key to Health System Financial Stability After COVID-19

by Jacqueline LaPointe

When COVID-19 really hit the Coachella Valley area of California in mid-March, volumes dropped by as much as 60 percent at Eisenhower Health. For a health system primarily relying on public payers,...

How Value-Based Payments Support Physicians During a Crisis

by Jacqueline LaPointe

More practices are going to want to get their revenue through value-based payments following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to heart failure cardiologist Sanjay Doddamani, MD. The pandemic has shown...

Mending Payer Relations Smooths Revenue Cycle at Northwestern Med

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Payers and providers have existed on different sides of the same fence, meeting in the middle once or twice a year to negotiate contracts or resolve major issues. However, technology, revenue cycle...

How Nebraska Medicine Avoided Furloughs During COVID-19

by Jacqueline LaPointe

At a time when healthcare organizations had to make the tough decision to furlough staff, Nebraska Medicine was quickly adapting its existing workforce to effectively respond to a global health...

CareMount’s Foundation for Accountable Care Organization Savings

by Jacqueline LaPointe

In CareMount Health Solutions’ first year as an accountable care organization (ACO) in Medicare’s Next Generation ACO Model, the organization was one of 38 participants to earn shared...

How University Hospitals Is Resuming Elective Surgeries

by Jacqueline LaPointe

As quickly as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases went up, the volume of joint replacements, spinal fusions, and other elective, non-emergent services dropped, in some cases up to 99 percent since...

Should Physician Practices Return Paycheck Protection Program Loans?

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Paycheck Protection Program loans were designed to support small businesses during the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis, but many physician practices have been debating whether returning the loans is a...

Adapting Patient-Friendly Medical Billing to a COVID-19 World

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Patient financial responsibility has been impacting the hospital revenue cycle far before the world knew what COVID-19 was. But the unprecedented public health crisis has shed new light on...

Few States Have Robust Healthcare Price Transparency Laws

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Massachusetts, Alaska, and Minnesota are among the states with the most comprehensive healthcare price transparency laws, which require providers, payers, or both to disclose costs to consumers, a new...

What Providers Need to Know About COVID-19 Coding and Billing

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The COVID-19 pandemic is putting strain on the healthcare system, but accurately capturing data and documenting cases of the novel coronavirus can help ease the burden on providers. For more...

AMGA Seeks Payroll Relief for Medical Groups Impacted by COVID-19

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Medical groups should be able to access the $349 billion in forgivable loans through the Paycheck Protection Program while practices wait on HHS to distribute the more than $100 billion in coronavirus...

Home Hospital Reduces Costs, Readmission for Acutely Ill Patients

by Emily Sokol, MPH

Unnecessary hospitalizations are costly and are often predictors of even more expensive readmissions. So many value-based contracts push for creative solutions that keep patients out of the hospital...

Playing Defense Key to Overcoming Fiscal Challenges of COVID-19

by Jacqueline LaPointe

COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on the healthcare system and that is coming with a high price tag. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to cost the global economy $1 trillion in 2020, according to recent...

Documentation to Ease Medical Billing Issues Due to COVID-19

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Clinical documentation is critical to serving patients with COVID-19, but also avoiding medical billing and payment issues in the months and years following the pandemic, according to healthcare...

Private Equity Firms Increasingly Buying Physician Practices

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Private equity firms acquired 355 physician practices from 2013 to 2016, and the number of acquisitions rose exponentially during the period, according to research published in JAMA. The research...

The Role of the Accountable Care Organization in Value-Based Care

by Emily Sokol, MPH

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) were created to push the industry away from fee-for-service towards value-based care. Through care coordination and a shared savings payment model, ACOs strive to...

How Social Media Helped an Accountable Care Organization Save $50M

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Coordination is key to the online retail industry. From the moment you click “order” on Amazon or Walmart.com, the retailer instantly starts packaging and mailing your item, providing you...