The Concept The concept behind coordination of benefits (COB) is fairly straightforward and simple. In situations where a patient has multiple health plans, it’s a way for commercial and government insurers to determine which payer is responsible for coverage, in what amount, and in what order — as a primary, secondary or tertiary payer. For instance, two spouses may pay for health insurance under each of their employer’s plans, so each would be covered under their plan and their spouse's plan. Or a single person may have Medicare and additional health care coverage under a supplemental plan. Coordination of benefits… Read entire article here
The 21st Century Cures Act and its Impact on Health IT Some important healthcare legislation was passed early last week that you might have missed, but which has even more relevance given the significant care coordination challenges in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, testing, and quarantine requirements. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) passed the Cures Act Final Rule, which is designed to provide patients and providers secure access to health information. Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) passed the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule, which is designed to provide… Read entire article here
As we look back at 2019, the seeds of active and emerging healthcare industry trends begin to come into sharper focus for 2020. Many of the articles forecasting 2020 trends for the healthcare market read more like predictions from fortune-tellers — so vague and obvious that they cannot possibly be incorrect, but also so vague and obvious that they provide the reader no value. We'd like to take a different approach. What we attempt to do here is dive beneath the superficial talking points and instead, provide our take on less discussed trends that we are observing directly from the trenches. Providing a more… Read entire article here
November 5, 2019
Using FHIR as a Competitive Advantage to Expand Referral Networks
by Beau Benson | Healthcare Technology
Healthcare has a physician burnout problem. Healthcare has a patient satisfaction problem. Healthcare has a cost problem. These are common refrains in healthcare today, but what single factor is at the center of each of these problems? Access to data. Lack of access to data leads to delays in care, redundant data entry, repetitive procedures, and causes financial hardship for patients and providers alike. As a result, costs to healthcare organizations and their patients have skyrocketed. Data sharing in healthcare has been limited by several factors: competition-fueled inertia, resilient paper-based workflows, systems cost, and (most acutely) a lack of standards… Read entire article here
