Humana Joins Medicare Value-Based Care Model; Telehealth Proving a Burden for Nurses
Humana has signed on to the CMS traditional value-based care contracting model. Meanwhile, telehealth appears to place an additional burden on nursing staff.
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By - May the fourth be with you. Welcome to Tuesday’s roundup of the latest healthcare news.
Humana Enlists in Traditional Medicare Value-Based Care Program
Humana has announced that it will be participating in a CMS traditional Medicare value-based contracting model and will offer coordinated care for traditional Medicare beneficiaries. The traditional Medicare value-based contracting model includes 53 direct contracting entities that will serve traditional Medicare beneficiaries across 38 states and the District of Columbia.
“We’re honored that Humana Care Solutions is one of only 53 organizations selected to participate in this innovative value-based model, which strives to accelerate the shift away from fee-for-service across the nation while providing greater financial consistency for providers,” said Humana Vice President of Value-based Strategies Oraida Roman. READ MORE
Telehealth Likely Placing More Strain on Nursing Staff
A new study out of the University of Missouri finds that nurses in some telehealth programs may be doing twice the work that they'd be doing treating patients in person. Undertaken by Chelsea Howland, a Doctoral student at the University of Missouri’s Sinclair School of Nursing and published in the Western Journal of Nursing Research, the study found that nurses involved in a remote patient monitoring program for patients living with type 2 diabetes were doing more work than those involved in typical in-person care programs.
“Telehealth can be an effective and convenient service for patients managing chronic diseases such as diabetes or hypertension, but what often gets overlooked is all the work being done by the nurses on the back end to assist patients,” said Howland. READ MORE
Providers Warm to Idea of Sharing Clinical Notes
Clinicians continue to embrace patient access to clinical notes, according to new data, a good shift considering the requirements recently enforced under the 21st Century Cures Act. The study of about 200 clinicians, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, showed that 44 percent of providers changed their view of patient access to clinical notes from negative to positive after implementing the strategy in their own practice.
“Our results suggest many of these clinicians would likely change their minds after starting to share notes,” the researchers wrote. READ MORE
Most Health Systems Recently Invested in RCM Technology
About three-quarters of hospitals and health systems in the US deployed revenue cycle management (RCM) technology or underwent active technology deployments during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey. The survey polled over 350 CFOs and revenue cycle leaders at hospitals and health systems between December 17, 2020, and Feb 5, 2021, using the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s (HFMA’s) Pulse Survey program. The survey was commissioned by the healthcare revenue cycle management company AKASA.
The survey points to an interest in revenue cycle management optimization despite the demands of an ongoing pandemic. READ MORE
Pfizer’s Amplyx Acquisition Targets Anti-Infective Therapies
Pfizer recently announced that it has acquired Amplyx Pharmaceuticals to expand its anti-infective therapies pipeline. Amplyx’s lead compound, Fosmanogepix, is a novel investigational antifungal that is currently under development for the treatment of invasive fungal infections. Fosmanogepix has the potential to target fungal strains resistant to standard of care therapy. With the acquisition, Pfizer has also secured ownership of Amplyx's early-stage pipeline that includes potential antiviral and antifungal therapies.
Fosmanogepix is currently In Phase 2 clinical trials evaluating the safety and efficacy of both intravenous and oral formulations for the treatment of patients with life-threatening fungal infections caused by mold, yeasts, and rare molds. READ MORE
ClosedLoop.ai Wins CMS Artificial Intelligence Challenge
CMS has announced ClosedLoop.ai as the winner and Geisinger as the runner-up in its Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge, a multi-stage competition that began in 2019. The AI Health Outcomes Challenge was operated by CMS’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation in partnership with the American Academy of Family Physicians and Arnold Ventures. The competition aimed to accelerate the development of AI solutions for predicting health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries for potential use by the Innovation Center.
ClosedLoop.ai was chosen as the grand prize winner out of more than 300 initial entries and will receive up to $1 million in prize money. READ MORE
