Healthmonix Advisor

Practice Recovery

As public health experts determine that it is safe to see patients, and governments lift stay-at-home restrictions, physician practices are challenged to strategically plan when and how best to reopen.  As the AMA points out, there are many components of reopening. 

When the time is right, it will be critical to be prepared to reopen, ready to communicate and live a new practice “normal”. In these uncertain times, making sure physical practice changes, staff training, workflow and supplies align, will be important for a successful reopening. Filling your schedule in safe and meaningful ways will help the practice sustain itself and your team. Marketing and communication to patients will help restore confidence and build trust.

COVID-19 has presented clinicians with many new challenges that are transforming the entire care delivery model.  It is crucial for health IT companies to do everything possible to support clients with navigating these rapid changes and keeping patients healthy.  Strategic integration partnerships are an extremely effective method to provide clinicians with a reliable network that is packed with the resources needed to provide quality care.  By working together, health IT organizations will play a vital role in overcoming the challenges and adjustments brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Physician practices are confronting new operational and business challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a mounting financial and administrative toll this pandemic has placed on practices, forcing all to adapt in a variety of areas.  Much of the conversation around COVID-19 has appropriately focused on addressing the pandemic and treatment of COVID-19 patients, however, we are also keenly aware of the other impacts on practices. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) continues to relax regulations to enable hospitals, clinics and other providers to boost their front-line medical staff during the COVID-19  pandemic. This pandemic has created an urgency for expansion of the use of virtual healthcare to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. It has also created a need to relax practice restrictions and allow more flexible care practices to meet the needs of patients.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) is working rapidly to update policies and allow healthcare providers to flexibly apply best practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Programs such as Hospitals without Walls and the existing Patients over Paperwork have been deployed.  Removal of barriers have resulted in exponential growth of telehealth and remote patient monitoring.   Advanced payments to healthcare providers are being provided to counter the effects of changing patterns of healthcare use,  reduction in elective procedure, increase in ICU utilization and other ongoing unanticipated changes.

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is paying for a wider range of telemedicine services during the coronavirus pandemic as of March 6, 2020. These remote medical services are available for all patients, not just those receiving coronavirus treatment. Telehealth services now include remote patient monitoring for both chronic and acute conditions, and allow doctors to collect Medicare payments for making phone calls to patients.

There is a tsunami of information coming at us all about COVID-19, the impact to healthcare practices, the business climate, and the federal government response. On Friday, we saw monumental legislative changes.  I haven't read the entire 887 page document yet, but here are a couple of the best recaps I've seen.  

Over the last month, there’s been a lot of discussion around the 2020 Medicare Final Rule updates for the QPP and MIPS here at Healthmonix and with our partners and clients. While the last three years of the program were about getting healthcare providers up-to-speed with the program, now the focus is on challenging providers to adhere to tougher rules.  High performers will reap significant rewards, others will see increasing downside.