Chronic diseases – including heart disease, stroke, cancer, asthma, Alzheimer's, diabetes, arthritis and others – kill and disable more Americans than anything else. Many also are among the costliest and most preventable health conditions. Combined with mental health care, care for chronic diseases constitutes the majority of the nation's $2.7 trillion in annual health care spending, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As America’s population ages, experts are exploring how best to keep older people with multiple chronic illnesses healthy. A new study suggests that coordination between physicians may be key.
CMS says it's working to improve access and quality of care in rural health settings, but the industry counters that it needs a much bigger effort to stem the bloodletting in the sector in recent years.
The telehealth market is poised for growth with $431M in venture capital investment being poured into startups in the space this year. Telehealth, or telemedicine, enables physicians to deliver care services to patients from a distance via communications tools such as videoconferencing, remote monitoring, and information-sharing platforms.
As the industry continues its shift from volume to value, healthcare organizations should consider innovative strategies for incorporating mental and behavioral healthcare services with the clinical environment. Delivering high-quality, preventive care requires clinicians to treat the whole patient, on both the physical and behavioral level.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing to expand Medicare coverage for telehealth services and to make it easier for physicians to provide care through in-person home visits. The policy changes were floated in a proposed rule issued Thursday, regarding payment policies, rates and quality provisions for services provided under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule on or after Jan. 1, 2019.
Effective chronic disease management is imperative in a healthcare industry in which costs are only going up. However, without adequate patient engagement and care coordination strategies, efforts to mitigate chronic care issues will not be successful, leaving the market to handle ever-rising healthcare costs.
Healthcare organizations are stepping up to the plate when it comes to older adult care and chronic care management, according to a recent report from BDO Center for Healthcare Excellence & Innovation. The report, which was informed by an NEJM Catalyst survey, found that healthcare organizations are looking into home health services, strong chronic disease plans, and health IT to address the needs of a growing aging population.
Payers that implemented value-based payment models reduced healthcare costs by an average of 5.6 percent, improved provider collaboration, and created more impactful member engagement, according to a new study from Change Healthcare.
Until fairly recently, patient engagement was not a business imperative for hospitals. The importance of patient engagement has increased primarily because of two changes in the way Medicare pays healthcare providers—the advent of readmission penalties and the transition to value-based reimbursement.
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on LinkedIn