Healthmonix Advisor

Christina Zink

Christina Zink is a content author and editor at Healthmonix. She has passion for healthcare quality improvement, especially when working with disadvantaged patient populations. This fuels her industry coverage of the upcoming shift to value-based care.
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Recent Posts

MIPS 2019 Free Resource Round-Up

Posted by Christina Zink on August 22, 2019

There's a lot to learn about Merit-Based Incentive Payment System compliance in 2019. Luckily, we've produced many resources over the past few months that break down the essentials in a way that is more quickly understood than reading hundreds of pages of federal policy. We've rounded them up for you this week in one convenient list!

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Healthmonix Achieves Quasi-QE status, Adds Functionality to Address Cost

Posted by Christina Zink on August 15, 2019

Malvern PA, August 7 2019 – Healthmonix, an industry leader in healthcare performance analytics, has been approved as a certified quasi-Qualified Entity (quasi-QE) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This status allows Healthmonix to use QCDR clinical data, combined with CMS Medicare data, to publicly report provider performance across the US.

Healthmonix is also launching the CostPROTM platform, integrated with the industry-leading (as published by KLAS) MIPSPRO platform. CostPRO is an unprecedented solution for Cost performance tracking and optimization that supports the Cost component of MIPS reporting, allowing providers and their staff to be proactive in analyzing the cost of care for their patients, and to determine how to control spending and provide better value throughout their ongoing care.

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A Summary of the 2020 MIPS Proposed Rule

Posted by Christina Zink on July 29, 2019

Today, CMS posted CY 2020 Updates to the Quality Payment Program to the Federal Register. Many clinicians are still trying to wrap their heads around how to report MIPS in 2019, but the release of the 2020 proposed rule is advantageous in deciding what to conquer both this year and in the future. As the title suggests, this document also covers other Quality Payment Program tracks, like Advanced APMs; however, for now we will just focus on the MIPS component of the proposed rule.

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Topics: MACRA & MIPS, Policy

Everything You Need To Know About MIPS Cost in 2019

Posted by Christina Zink on July 18, 2019

The CY 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule involves a slew of regulatory changes that will apply to the 2019 performance year. Of course, wading through the final rule to find and understand the most important features of the policy can be grueling; but you’re in luck, because we’ve already done it so you don’t have to! In today’s blog, we’re focusing on the MIPS Cost category.

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Topics: MACRA & MIPS, Policy, Cost Performance Category

Everything You Need To Know About MIPS Improvement Activities In 2019

Posted by Christina Zink on June 6, 2019

The CY 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule involves a slew of regulatory changes that will apply to the 2019 performance year. Of course, wading through the final rule to find and understand the most important features of the policy can be grueling; but you’re in luck, because we’ve already done it so you don’t have to! In today’s blog, we’re focusing on the MIPS Improvement Activities (IA) category.

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Topics: MACRA & MIPS, Policy, IA Performance Category

Everything You Need To Know About MIPS Quality in 2019 Part 2: Scoring

Posted by Christina Zink on May 30, 2019

In our last blog we gave an overview of the MIPS Quality Performance Category and discussed its reporting requirements. This week, we'll look more in-depth at how this category will be scored for the 2019 performance year.

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Topics: MACRA & MIPS, Policy, Quality Performance Category

Everything You Need To Know About MIPS PI In 2019

Posted by Christina Zink on May 23, 2019

The CY 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule involves a slew of regulatory changes that will apply to the 2019 performance year. Of course, wading through the final rule to find and understand the most important features of the policy can be grueling; but you’re in luck, because we’ve already done it so you don’t have to! In today’s blog, we’re focusing on the MIPS Promoting Interoperability (PI) category.

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Topics: MACRA & MIPS, Policy, PI Performance Category

Everything You Need To Know About MIPS Quality in 2019: Reporting Requirements (1/2)

Posted by Christina Zink on May 23, 2019

The CY 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule involves a slew of regulatory changes that will apply to the 2019 performance year. Of course, wading through the final rule to find and understand the most important features of the policy can be grueling; but you’re in luck, because we’ve already done it so you don’t have to! In today’s blog, we’re focusing on the MIPS Quality Performance category.

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Topics: MACRA & MIPS, Policy, Quality Performance Category

ACOs Leave MSSP After "Pathways To Success"

Posted by Christina Zink on May 17, 2019

Between 2018 and 2019, 74 of Medicare’s 561 accountable care organizations (ACOs)—or 13%—left the program, according to research by Leavitt Partners. The same research also found that 26% of ACOs that reached the end of their three-year agreement opted to not renew it at the end of 2018.

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Topics: CMS, ACO, APMs

Streamlining MIPS Reporting When Using Data from Multiple Sources

Posted by Christina Zink on May 10, 2019

Health systems face a unique challenge when navigating the CMS Quality Payment Program (QPP). All currently available options to comply with the QPP require the submission of some form of clinical quality measures. With multiple specialties and often multiple sources for tracking billing and clinical data, aggregating all available data in a coherent, efficient, and centralized way can seem nearly impossible for the average health system. This case study demonstrates how MIPSPRO assisted one of their health system clients by streamlining their quality reporting process.

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Topics: PRO Tips, MACRA & MIPS, Interoperability, Healthmonix, Health IT, Hospitals & Health Systems