HIStalk Healthcare IT News and Opinion. Top News. Athenahealth announces Q3 results revenue up 1. EPS 0. 5. 6 vs. 0. The company announced that it will lay off 9 percent of its workforce in cutting a reported 4. Boston newspapers cited sources who said they saw security officers escorting people out of the companys Watertown, MA offices Thursday morning. Athenahealth is undertaking a strategic review, pressured by an activist investor, expecting to generate up to 1. As part of the cost cutting program, Athenahealth will close its offices in San Francisco, CA and Princeton, NJ, both of which house employees of Epocrates, the drug information app company that Athenahealth acquired for 2. Felician Services Board Chair Jack Cashman and Andrea White, Felician Services President, engage SM Angela Parkins, CEO, and Dave Akerson, Board Chair, of St. Felix. January 2. Anonymous people posted on an Internet layoff discussion board that the company is selling its jet as well as the 3. Point Lookout resort in Maine that it bought for 7. ATHN shares dropped 4 percent during Thursdays trading and were down another 4 percent in early after hours trading. HIStalk Announcements and Requests. NYC Health Hospitals took exception to my mentioning a recent article in the New York Post headline above, with its complaints below. Im sympathetic since I dont usually run one sided lawsuit recaps, especially of the he said, said variety, but several readers had sent this link over with obvious interest and I saw it popping up in a lot of places, so I simply recapped the Post story. The lawsuit had nothing to do with sexual harassment. Arjun Serial Full Episode Free Download'>Arjun Serial Full Episode Free Download. Thats true and Ive corrected my wording. I said in considerable detail that the lawsuit was related to wrongful termination, but I worded the part poorly where I referred to sexual harassment the Post article focused on that, but the lawsuit itself didnt. The former IT director was never deposed. The Post story said he was and quoted what it said was his sworn testimony directly, so I had no reason to doubt that. The actual lawsuit alleging wrongful contract termination was dismissed. That wasnt mentioned in the Post article, which references an ongoing gender discrimination case that doesnt make it clear whether she filed one lawsuit or two. I dont have access to court records unless I can turn something up by Google searching for something that isnt behind a paywall, which I didnt in this case. I did turn up the OIG report item not mentioned in the Post article that was mostly favorable to the health system and summarized that, which the Post article did not. You make it appear as though it is your original reporting, which would be WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. I linked to the Post article like I do all news item I cite, so I cant imagine anyone thinking I was writing from a New York courtroom instead of my stereotypical bloggers spare bedroom. Listening The Tragically Hip, thoughtfully rocking with an intact lineup as the pride of Canada since 1. Gord Downie died of brain cancer at 5. Reaction to his death has overtaken the Toronto newspaper, but an article written last year about what turned out to be the bands final tour is the most poignant. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a tear filled tribute to Downie, declaring, We are less as a country without Gord Downie. Amazons continuous rollout of features amazes me. Last night I received a text message indicating that my package had been delivered, complete with a driver taken photo of the item sitting on my doorstep. Im not sure why I need it other than that it answers the question of whether the delivery went to the mailbox or to the doormat, but its cool. This week on HIStalk Practice EHR related medical malpractice claims continue to increase. Patient. Pop ramps up Google related physician marketing capabilities. Health Affairs offers context around OIGs ACO analysis. Healthcare will grab ever more headlines in the U. S. in the coming months, says Jim Heskett. Any service that is on track to consume 40 percent of the gross national. Earn your MHA online from the George Washington University. Experienced health care professionals looking to advance into executive roles can now earn their MHA. The Excellence in Nursing awards program, in partnership with the Lillian Carter Center for Global Health Social Responsibility at the Emory University School of. Read the history and latest developments of Health Insurance Purchasing cooperatives COOPs, also known on the state level as alliances and pools. The ACA includes. Metadescription How can hospitals solve the problem of rising healthcare costs The case for change is clear with doubledigit negative margins by 2021. Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services goes with Epic. Walgreens brings 3. Medsphere acquires Stockell Healthcare Systems. Jtds 1.2 Jar. Texas Medical Association begins doling out disaster relief funds to wiped out practices. PRM Pro Jim Higgins offers practical solutions for physician tech integration challenges. Webinars. October 2. Tuesday 1 0. 0 ET. Improve Care and Save Clinician Time by Streamlining Specialty Drug Prescribing. Sponsored by Zapp. Rx. Presenter Jeremy Feldman, MD, director, pulmonary hypertension and advanced lung disease program and medical director of research, Arizona Pulmonary Specialists. Clinicians spend an average of 2. PA paperwork to get patients the medications they need. This webinar will describe how Arizona Pulmonary Specialists automated the inefficient specialty drug ordering process to improve patient care while saving its clinicians time. October 2. 5 Wednesday 1 0. ET. Delivering the Healthcare Pricing Transparency that Consumers are Demanding. Sponsored by Health Catalyst. Roles Government Sponsored Healthcare Programs' title='Roles Government Sponsored Healthcare Programs' />Discover A. T. Still Universitys Doctor of Health Sciences online medical degree at ATSUs College of Graduate Health Studies First in Whole Person Healthcare. Roles Government Sponsored Healthcare Programs' title='Roles Government Sponsored Healthcare Programs' />Presenter Gene Thompson, director, Health City Cayman Islands. Health systems are unlike every other major consumer category in not providing upfront pricing information. Learn how one health system has developed predictable, transparent bundled pricing for most major specialties. Attendees will gain insight into the importance of their quality measures and their use of actual daily procedure costing rather than allocated costs. They will also learn about the strategic risk of other market participants competing with single bundled pricing. The organizations director will expand how its years long process is enabling healthcare delivery reform. Taito Legends 2 Pc. October 2. 6 Thursday 2 0. ET. Is your EHR limiting your success in value based care Sponsored by Philips Wellcentive. Presenters Lindsey Bates, market director of compliance, Philips Wellcentive Greg Fulton, industry and public policy lead, Philips Wellcentive. No single technology solution will solve every problem, so ensuring you select the ones most aligned to meet your strategic goals can be the difference between thriving or merely surviving. From quality reporting to analytics to measures building, developing a comprehensive healthcare strategy that will support your journey in population health and value base care programs is the foundation of success. Join Philips Wellcentive for our upcoming interactive webinar, where well help you evolve ahead of the industry, setting the right strategic goals and getting the most out of your technology solutions. November 8 Wednesday 1 0. ET. How Clinically Integrated Networks Can Overcome the Technical Challenges to Data Sharing. Sponsored by Liaison Technologies. Presenters Dominick Mack, MD, executive medical director, Georgia Health Information Technology Extension Center and Georgia Health Connect, director, National Center for Primary Care, and associate professor, Morehouse School of Medicine  Gary Palgon, VP of  healthcare and life sciences solutions, Liaison Technologies. This webinar will describe how Georgia Heath Connect connects clinically integrated networks to hospitals and small and rural practices, helping providers in medically underserved communities meet MACRA requirements by providing technology, technology support, and education that accelerates regulatory compliance and improves outcomes. Previous webinars are on our You. Tube channel. Contact Lorre for information. Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock. Medsphere acquires its long time revenue cycle implementation partner Stockell Health Systems, which will retain its name as a division of Medsphere. Population health management system vendor Base. Health receives an 8. Ways Hospitals Can Solve the Problem of Rising Healthcare Costs. Posted in. Healthcare Transformation. My Folder Add. We hear so often about rate pressures on hospitals and the risk these pressures pose for their future. With healthcare reform, the burden of rising healthcare costs is shifting from payers to providers. But do we always take in the true import of that warning Does it become just another portent of doom and gloom that we can brush off Sometimes its more effective to make the warning concrete. The Advisory Board Company did just that in their 2. Running on Medicare Margins Restructuring Costs and Building the Care Management Enterprise to Prosper on Radically Lower Pricing updated in 2. They examined all the numbers and evidence to determine this Hospitals that keep operating according to business as usual will have a 1. Thats a sobering fact. The Burden of Rising Healthcare Costs on Employers And Employees. Healthcare costs in the United States are rising two to three times faster than the rate of inflation. This trajectory is not sustainable. Something is going to have to give. Pressure to reduce costs travels from employers to payers and on to providers. Providers must make the changes necessary to curb the cost trend. Lets review what current data tells us about this topic. Consider the following from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The chart below shows the increase over the last 1. The graph clearly illustrates the steadyand steeprise in healthcare premiums. Fifteen years ago, the average yearly insurance premium was less than 6,0. Today, it is more than 1. Interestingly enough, employees percent contribution to that premium has remained steady 2. But in order to continue being able to provide insurance, employers have shifted costs to their workers through growing deductibles and coinsurance. We have seen an enormous rise in the average deductible over the past 1. Even with employees shouldering more of the burden, employers are really the ones paying for the increased cost of care. In fact, sponsoring health insurance is the fastest increasing expenditure for many large companies. They are nearing the end of their willingness to continue to sustain these increases in healthcare costs. Pressure on Payers The Consequence for Providers Government payers have traditionally reimbursed at low levels. For 2. 01. 4, the Medicare inpatient payment increase was. During 2. 01. 3, hospitals felt the impact of sequestration with a 2 percent cut in payment. Medicare wants to move to a value based system and has created different programs to accomplish this. Some programs are penalty only such as Readmission and Hospital Acquired Conditions. Under the Medicare Shared Savings Program MSSP and through Value Based Purchasing VBP hospitals can earn incentives and also be subject to penalties. All these programs increase complexity for hospitals. Below is a chart showing the Medicare payment dollars at risk over the next few years. So we are having low increases in payments, added risk, and increased burden of tracking new programs. This means that, generally, government payers are a negative margin for hospitals. The following graph, produced from American Hospital Association statistics, demonstrates the problem for health systems. Those Medicare and Medicaid margins are getting squeezed tighter and tighter, and hospitals have long relied on profitable business from private payers to make up that loss. This profitable business from the private sector is the only thing saving hospitals from a negative margin. Employers are increasingly reluctant to absorb these increases in healthcare costs. Lets face it payers need to keep their employer customers happy. They get business by having lower rate increases than their competitors. So they turn to providers and ratchet down on rate increases. More and more, this trend will shrink the gap between the hospitals cost of providing care and the reimbursement they get from private payers. Ultimately, this means that hospitals have less of a private payer cushion with which to make up the negative margin from their government payer business. The change in our nations demographics exacerbates the problem. As baby boomers age and become Medicare beneficiaries, the payer mix changes accordingly. With more population moving into the unprofitable government payer category, fewer patients have commercial plans that can carry the cost burden. As I mentioned earlier, The Advisory Board Company examined this situation and projected what the future would look like based on these trends. They translated the effect of Medicare and Medicaid cuts already on the books and considered trends in the private space. Here are two important conclusions from that report, in brief Hospitals that keep operating according to business as usual will have a 1. Traditional approaches to cutting costs, such as labor reduction, will be insufficient to counter these trends. Successful hospitals will have to pursue a comprehensive approach to restructuring that addresses the different forces driving change in the market today. What Hospitals Can Do to Survive And Thrive. This all sounds pretty dire, rightThankfully, there is a way forward. Here are four things hospitals can do Capture all available revenue in current VBP agreements ex meet readmission targets and disease management quality scores. Ensure clinical documentation and billing records accurately reflect the care provided. Many organizations miss billing opportunities due to incomplete or insufficient documentation. Increase revenue by negotiating shared savings agreements with payers. Eliminate waste and increase efficiency to reduce operating costs. These changes are not necessarily easy and can seem overwhelming. The question is whether your hospital will be a pioneer on the trail or will delay until its too late. The best way to get started is to understand exactly where you are todayyour current cost structure and how each area of your organization is performing in terms of quality and cost. Hospitals have numerous data assets that can clarify this big picture. But getting those data assets together to form one picture is a challenge. A single source of truth requires a healthcare enterprise data warehouse EDW that can aggregate clinical, financial, and patient satisfaction data to help hospitals not only understand their business but give them the insight and tools for improvement. A hospitals success will depend on ability and willingness to creatively collaborate with payers. It will also require efficient operations and an in depth understanding of relationships between clinical quality and operational costs. An EDW gives hospitals the data foundation required to successfully plan, prioritize, measure, and sustain these improvements. Learn the key to transitioning from fee for service to value based reimbursement and see how an accountable care approach would change how a patient is treated. What is your organization doing to prepare for the consequences of cost pressures in the industry Have you formulated a strategy How are you using your data assets to drive this strategy Power. Point Slides. Would you like to use or share these concepts Download this presentation highlighting the key main points. Click Here to Download the Slides1 The Advisory Board Company. Running on Medicare Margins Restructuring Costs and Building the Care Management Enterprise to Prosper on Radically Lower Pricing.