News 5/4/20

Top News

Providers from a Wake Forest Baptist Health urology group in North Carolina put together a telemedicine implementation toolkit to help groups of any size quickly implement virtual visits. They point out that telemedicine capabilities already embedded in their EHR may not be the best fit, and suggest other alternatives that take the need for additional software into consideration. Staff and patient training is second only to technology: “Telemedicine is currently built as a physician platform. We changed it to be inclusive of nurses; we engaged our nursing staff into the platform so that they continue to do the same roles that they do in person.”

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Reader Comments

From It’s All Good: “Re: Telemedicine company Medici raises $24 million in a Series B round. It will be very interesting to see how quickly the newly flush telemedicine vendors crash once reimbursement normalizes and demand for telemedicine isn’t as profitable as in-person visits (again).” IAG’s timely observation makes me think back to the heady days of the HITECH Act, when EHR vendors flourished as hopeful providers and government funding propelled the market forward. While the EHR bubble didn’t burst overnight by any means, I can’t help but think telemedicine’s might be a bit more fragile, given the glut of vendors that have flooded the market in the last several years and the corresponding investor interest. Providers taking advantage of newly loosened telemedicine restrictions don’t seem to be purchasing virtual visit technology as much as they are taking advantage of video-conferencing services like Zoom and Facetime, at least according to the stories I’ve come across over the last six weeks. I’d love to hear from MDs working in the trenches right now. Will telemedicine uptake during COVID-19 compel you to invest in telemedicine technology from recognized vendors, assuming you even have an IT budget after the pandemic is over? Email me or leave a comment below.

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Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

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Announcements and Implementations

Advanced Radiology implements the EInformatics Wait in Car app, giving providers at its imaging sites in Connecticut the ability to safely manage patient flow and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Modernizing Medicine integrates Appriss Health’s PMP Gateway with its EMA EHR, giving prescribers the ability to tap into state-based prescription drug monitoring programs.

After seeing a 260% increase in video visits, house call company Landmark Health develops its own telemedicine app to help its patient population – the majority of which are seniors – stay connected to their Landmark providers.

The Indiana State Department of Health works with Zotec Partners to develop a COVID-19 screening and assessment app that also allows patients to schedule testing appointments.

DrChrono adds telemedicine capabilities to its tablet-based EHR.

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People

R1 RCM names Rachel Wilson (Iron Mountain Data Centers) EVP and CFO.

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Research and Innovation

This study finds that care offered to 2,000 employees through membership-based primary care company One Medical results in lower utilization and less spending across a number of categories when compared with primary care offered to employees through other means.

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Other

Value-based primary care company Aledade shares the details behind its recent procurement and distribution of $1.3 million worth of PPE to its practices, highlighting the fact that single practices have little purchasing power on their own when it comes to ordering in bulk from overseas.

CityMD’s EClinicalWorks patient portal suffers downtime. It seems the urgent care chain was alerted to the fact by disgruntled patients awaiting their COVID-19 test results. The New York City-based company will open three new clinics this month.

Municipal Parking Services develops the Sentry Health Kiosk, a COVID-19 screening station that grants admittance to buildings after visitors use hand sanitizer, and have their temperatures taken and recorded as acceptable.

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Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Is your medical practice disaster and emergency proof? (PerfectServe)
• 3 Practices Finding Success with Telehealth (EClinicalWorks)

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Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 4/29/20

Top News

Telemedicine company Medici raises $24 million in a Series B round. The company, which has raised $70 million over the last four years, has seen a 1,409% increase in patient registrations in the last three months.

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HIStalk Practice Musings

Regular readers will know that I have a soft spot for all things literary, perhaps fostered by my first job as a library assistant at my local library – just steps away from my junior high school, which made for a very walkable commute. The pay wasn’t much, but the perk of getting my hands on new releases before they were put on our shelves was worth its weight in gold. Libraries have evolved since then, offering more community-based services than ever before. While most if not all systems have closed their branches during the pandemic, they have correspondingly bolstered their digital presence. I was pleased to see CoverMyMeds highlight how it is partnering with its local library to offer patrons job skills training. Be sure to check out what your local library has on offer right now.

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Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

CNBC looks at the frustration many practices are feeling as they struggle to make ends meet while waiting for their small business loan applications to be processed. Many practice owners have been told their applications won’t be processed until the second wave of PPP funding is released. Chiropractor Laura Heisler, DC is anxiously awaiting her SBA loan to be approved through JPMorgan Chase, which has come under fire for approving far more loans for larger businesses than small ones: “It makes me feel very unimportant in the world. I know I’m a sole practitioner, I have no employees at all, but I’ve been running a practice for almost 30 years successfully, and it would be nice if we were recognized as being as important as these huge companies.”

The developers of recruiting platform Jane.hr launch MyTelehealth.jobs to help connect healthcare workers – particularly those who’ve been furloughed or laid off, or who’ve closed up their own practices – with jobs in telemedicine. The site is offering free job postings for any position that supports Covid-19 relief efforts.

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Announcements and Implementations

CheckedUp adds virtual visit capabilities to its patient engagement and educational content software.

To help practices maintain cash flow, Greenway Health announces GA of GRS Express, a suite of expedited RCM services.

Behavioral healthcare provider LifeStance Health selects in-person and virtual visit scheduling software from DocASAP.

Mental and behavioral health software company Therapy Brands will integrate telemedicine capabilities into its Fusion Web Clinic, KASA Solutions, and Procentive EHR products.

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Government and Politics

Physicians in Texas are looking forward to using a new portal to request much-needed PPE. Set to launch later this week, the development of the portal is the result of a collaboration between local physicians, the Texas Medical Association, and state agencies. Priority will be based on current supply, typical daily usage, medical specialty, and patient population.

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People

Health Plus Management names Stacy Gibbons (CityMD) SVP of operations.

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Other

The local news profiles several “non-essential” practices in Kentucky that have chosen to reopen as part of the state’s gradual progression back to “business as usual.” Estes Chiropractic Center co-owner Kelly Estes, DC is relieved to be getting back to work: “We were closed for five solid weeks. Five weeks I did not wear a pair of khakis. It was very unusual.”

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Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• How Healthcare is Falling Behind in a Digital Economy (Part 2) (AdvancedMD)
• COVID-19 and Virtual Health Services – Commonly Asked Q&A (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)

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Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 4/27/20

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Several dozen doctors in North Carolina who intended to leave Holston Medical Group in early September file a breach-of-contract lawsuit against their employer after HMG notified them their last day of practice would instead be April 3. The doctors, many of whom broke away from Novant Health in early 2019 in pursuit of less bureaucracy and more time with patients through employment with HMG, contend the company failed to provide necessary staffing, an adequate EHR, a working phone system, and timely supply of PPE.

Their initial decision to leave was prompted by corporate mismanagement, ongoing office closures, and recent furloughs. The doctors plan to eventually go back to hospital employment and operate an Atrium Health-owned practice under the name of One Health.

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Webinars

April 28 (Tuesday) 1 ET: “COVID-19: Managing an evolving patient population with health information systems.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Julie Glasgow, MD, clinical terminologist, IMO; Reeti Chauhan, senior product manager, IMO. IMO recently released new novel coronavirus descriptors to help clinicians accurately record diagnoses and also created free IMO Precision COVID-19 Sets to help identify and analyze patients with potential or documented infection. The presenters will discuss these new tools and describe how to use them optimally.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

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Announcements and Implementations

App-based house call company Heal implements Health Gorilla’s Patient360 API to help its providers retrieve patient medical records from the vendor’s network of care facilities, including those with ties to CommonWell and CareQuality.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts offers free telemedicine visits to uninsured residents with questions related to COVID-19 and those in need of COVID-19 care as determined by state-based contact-tracing efforts. The state rolled out a chatbot-based screening and assessment tool from Buoy in March.

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Government and Politics

In Georgia, the Cobb & Douglas Public Health Department leverages a Web portal designed by Treeno Software to automate the scheduling of COVID-19 tests at its two drive-thru sites.

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Research and Innovation

Echoing sentiments Dr. Jayne shared recently from the virtual physician lounge, a separate survey of 842 physicians finds that:

• Just under 40% care caring for COVID-19 patients.
• Twenty-one percent have experienced furlough or pay cuts.
• Fourteen percent plan to change practice settings because of the virus.
• Nearly 20% plan to retire, temporarily close their practices, or shift away from patient care.

Harvard University researchers analyze data from 50,000 Phreesia customers to determine that:

• Visits to ambulatory practices dropped 60% between mid-March and remained low through mid-April.
• The most dramatic declines were seen in New England and Mid-Atlantic states, and among surgical and procedural specialties.
• A corresponding increase in virtual visits was not enough to offset the in-person decrease.
• Nearly a third of all visits are now done via telemedicine.

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Other

MIT Technology Review looks at the still uncharted waters of physician influencers on social media, highlighting the tension many TikTok-friendly clinicians feel when attempting to ethically share credible information in a way that’s palatable to a platform’s users. Family physician and medical Youtube sensation Mikhail Varshavski, DO explains: “If you are a doctor and you’re popular and people look to you for guidance, and you believe your expert opinion without any kind of research to substantiate it outweighs that of the guidance from the CDC and WHO, you’ve crossed the line.”

In Alabama, Bay Medical Family Practice owner Lynn Yonge, MD has channeled his experience preparing for and treating COVID-19 patients, and – along with six of his nine employees – dealing with and recovering from the virus into a series of pieces for a collaborative, pop-up art exhibit outside of the area’s temporarily closed arts center.

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Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe congratulates customer Prisma Health on FDA approval of its VESper ventilator expansion device.
• The local business paper profiles the rapid uptake in adoption of the Healow telemedicine app from EClinicalWorks.

Blog Posts

• Charles Corfield’s COVID-19 Weekly Assessment (NVoq)
• Shift in the Medical Mindset (EClinicalWorks)
• COVID-19, Loneliness, and Cabin Fever (Healthwise)
• Maximizing capacity for rescheduled elective and routine care (Nordic)
• Learn how to strategically add telemedicine into your practice (AdvancedMD)

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Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 4/22/20

Top News

CMS, ONC, and the HHS Office of the Inspector General announce they will, to varying degrees, delay enforcing compliance with final interoperability rules so that healthcare stakeholders can focus on COVID-19-related operations.

Most relevant to this audience may be ONC’s new timeframes for software developers.

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HIStalk Practice Musings

I haven’t had any personal experience with COVID-19, aside from the economic impact on various family members. I have, however, seen its indirect effects – both positive and negative on local, non-COVID patients: A friend has been at her wits’ end trying to find care for her 85 year-old father in-law as he recovers from several strokes. She’s told me his regular doctors have refused to see him because they are apparently no longer seeing patients above the age of 65. She was so relieved to find a home health agency that offers in-person and virtual visits to fill in his care gaps for the time being. On the flip side, my neighbor’s emergency gall bladder removal earlier this week probably went more smoothly than in non-Covid times of care. He didn’t wait long in the emergency room and his surgery, thankfully routine, happened not long after he was admitted. His wife was not thrilled that she couldn’t visit him, though. Given that the hospital he went to is in one of the top five counties for COVID cases, I hope to eventually ask him about any noticeable changes to its operating procedures/standards of care.

 

Speaking of counties, I’ve found the daily COVID-19 statistics released by my state’s department of public health invaluable in helping me understand how the virus is impacting my community. I’ve been visiting its COVID-19 landing page daily for about a month now, and it’s been interesting to see how reporting of the data has changed as cases and testing have increased. They now seem to be entering a leveling-off phase, which is encouraging, though I’m not enough of a data-whisperer to infer that we’ve definitely flattened the curve. Thankfully, data is non-partisan.

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Webinars

April 28 (Tuesday) 1 ET: “COVID-19: Managing an evolving patient population with health information systems.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Julie Glasgow, MD, clinical terminologist, IMO; Reeti Chauhan, senior product manager, IMO. IMO recently released new novel coronavirus descriptors to help clinicians accurately record diagnoses and also created free IMO Precision COVID-19 Sets to help identify and analyze patients with potential or documented infection. The presenters will discuss these new tools and describe how to use them optimally.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers CEO James Hunt, Jr. says recent federal grants will keep the state’s 52 centers going for another six weeks, and that billions of dollars will be needed to keep programs stable over the next three to six months. Thirty-two centers are preparing to launch widespread COVID-19 testing and contact tracing efforts, despite a shortage of PPE.

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Announcements and Implementations

Amwell announces GA of white-label telemedicine capabilities for physician practices.

The National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics will offer member organizations access to Updox’s telemedicine software and services.

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Government and Politics

The State of Georgia expands a COVID-19 screening app developed by August University Health System to residents statewide. Those who qualify can make testing appointments with the department of public health through the app. Patients who test positive will then be asked to self-report symptoms and whereabouts through a portal developed by Google and MTX Group. Officials say data from the portal will be essential to boots-on-the-ground contact tracing efforts. 

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Research and Innovation

An informal survey of 2,000 physicians conducted during a call-in Texas Medical Association COVID-19 Town Hall finds that:

• Twenty-four percent have lost between 75% and 100% of their revenue since the pandemic began.
• Thirty-six percent have lost between 50% and 75% of their revenue.
• Twenty-three percent have lost between 25% and 50% of their revenue.
• Forty-one percent need more data on testing and testing options.
• Nearly 75% began using telemedicine for the first time as of March 1.

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Other

Value-based care practice management company Primary PartnerCare procures 5,000 N95 masks for the 100 independent physicians within its New York-based network. Sixty percent of its practices are still operating. A PCP study conducted in mid-April found that just under 50% of surveyed practices have enough patient volume and cash on hand to stay open through mid-May.

In Texas, Bent Tree Family Physicians President and CEO Guy Culpepper, MD expresses his frustration with the state of independent practice during COVID-19, the effects of which have forced him to furlough his entire staff and apply for a small business loan:

We believed that we would be receiving a loan from the government CARES program, so we kept working as hard as ever, actually much harder. Our phone calls overflowed with non-billable patient questions and problems. And we returned calls 24 hours a day. We preventing hundreds of people from going to the ER. We flattened the curve.

We did everything we thought we were supposed to do. We applied for a loan properly and on time at our long time bank, BB&T. But the $350 Billion dollars of small business loans went too quickly to other businesses, like Ruths Chris and Potbelly’s. We didn’t get a loan.

I don’t know why America’s essential workers, like BTFP, were not treated as essential loan recipients. I guess I trusted the system too much.

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Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 4/20/20

Top News

Value-based practice management company Aledade raises $64 million in a Series C round of funding led by OMERS Growth Equity. Launched in 2014 by former ONC leader Farzad Mostashari, MD (whom, in my opinion, is a voice of sound public health reasoning right now, along with former FDA head Scott Gottlieb, MD), the company’s clients now include 550 independent practices in nearly 30 states. Aledade will use the financing to help it expand in California. The California Medical Association also participated in the round.

The company made news several days ago for supplying 500 practices enrolled in its ACO programs with PPE including 282,000 surgical masks, 119,000 KN95 respirators, 348,000 medical gloves, 101,000 disposable gowns, 29,000 face shields, and 4,000 bottles of hand sanitizer.

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Webinars

April 28 (Tuesday) 1 ET: “COVID-19: Managing an evolving patient population with health information systems.”Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Julie Glasgow, MD, clinical terminologist, IMO; Reeti Chauhan, senior product manager, IMO. IMO recently released new novel coronavirus descriptors to help clinicians accurately record diagnoses and also created free IMO Precision COVID-19 Sets to help identify and analyze patients with potential or documented infection. The presenters will discuss these new tools and describe how to use them optimally.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

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People

Debra Stall (Pennington Group) joins Therapy Brands as head of RCM and clearinghouse.

 

Telemedicine company Wheel names Chris Norris (Darby Smart) CTO and Chris Donus (Lyft) CFO.

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Announcements and Implementations

Marshfield Clinic (WI) implements Ikonopedia’s cloud-based breast reporting software across its eight imaging centers and three mobile mammography units.

MD Revolution integrates Electronic Caregiver’s Pro Health remote patient monitoring software with its RevUp digital care management technology.

National clinic chain Ivy Rehab Physical Therapy will implement telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, and outcomes tracking software from PhysiTrack through a custom-built app dubbed Ivy Rehab Connect.

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Government and Politics

Just three days after opening the application window, the FCC awards over $3 million to six healthcare organizations including Hudson River HealthCare in New York and Neighborhood Health Care in Cleveland. Both organizations will use the financing to purchase telemedicine, connected devices, and remote patient monitoring for low-income patients with chronic conditions.

In Texas, the Austin Public Health department launches an online portal enabling residents to complete online COVID-19 testing assessments, data from which will help health officials better gauge testing demand and follow up with high-risk patients. The portal will also offer testing referrals, follow-up results, and secure messaging. The department hopes to be able to test up to 2,000 people per week at its drive-thru sites.

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Other

This article looks at the unexpectedly quick deployment of telemedicine services across Hudson Headwaters’ 19 community clinics in upstate New York. What had been still in the planning stages was quickly implemented through Zoom in just a few weeks, according to CMIO Kevin Gallagher, MD who joined the organization on March 2. Since launching the service, it has conducted 2,379 audio visits and 2,081 video visits.

Codementor develops Code Against COVID-19, a website that matches software developers with COVID-19 related software projects.

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Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• How Dallas Renal Group is Providing Care While Social Distancing (EClinicalWorks)
• Standing Up a Virtual Business Office (Nordic)
• Patient Education and Telehealth: Finding Opportunity Amid COVID-19 (Healthwise)

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Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.