Note: iProtean, now part of Veralon editorial staff will be on vacation through Labor Day. Look for the next blog/newsletter September 6.) (From a recent interview with Karma Bass, Via Healthcare Consulting) When fellow board members exhibit disruptive or troublesome behavior in the boardroom, they often don’t see it that way; that is, […]
Veralon Views Blog
The Veralon Views blog is an extension of our partnership with leaders who are transforming the healthcare industry. Here, we share expert perspectives from our nationally recognized senior consulting team on issues that are key to the success of your organization.
Medicare payments to hospitals under the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) will increase by about $2.4 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2018 under final rule CMS issued August 2. The increase is less than the $3.1 billion anticipated under the proposed rule released in April. The rule will take effect October 1. In its […]
Hospitals and health systems have not historically focused on post-acute care. However, several factors are now motivating them to develop or strengthen their ties with post-acute care providers and establish an explicit post-acute care strategy. Acute care providers need to develop strong collaborative relationships with post-acute providers to ensure access to the post-acute care capacity […]
Economists estimate that 80 percent of all the cost of health care relate to social determinants of health. These include everything from exercise and healthy diet and healthy weight, to avoiding substance abuse and/or other self-destructive behaviors, to ensuring that people have adequate nutrition and housing. Those are big social issues that hospitals and health […]
Increasingly, hospital administrators are concluding that there is a great deal more to managing their employed physicians than simply signing them up. Hospital and health system leadership use data and analysis to create medical staff plans that determine the physician complement that best meets their various needs. Traditionally, hospitals and health systems have used two […]
(The following includes excerpts from our upcoming course, Strategic Issues for Boards, as well as information that didn’t make the cut.) MACRA creates two different tracks for clinicians to participate in Medicare. One is called the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, or MIPS. The second is the Advanced Alternative Payment Model (AAPM). Each of these […]
To protect against cyber attacks, an organization should have an enterprise risk management program that has three layers of defense: information security, internal audit and risk management. These layers complement one another. The information security group has a large swath of IT related issues to cover. The internal audit group will help the information […]
A prudently conducted due diligence effort will surface a comprehensive (and often lengthy) list of potential risks and issues related to the transaction being assessed. However, the implications of these risks will vary widely. In the thick of due diligence, it often seems that finding issues and risks is the ultimate goal. It can be […]
About half of hospital-based physicians said they were not knowledgeable about the Medicare physician pay overhaul (Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015—MACRA) that began earlier this year, according to a recent survey by KPMG and the American Medical Association. This represents a larger share compared with physicians in other settings. The survey […]
Last week we covered the first four elements for structuring cardiac payment bundles. These included establishing clear and achievable goals, focusing on inpatient costs and reducing care variations, being guided by data and focusing on medication management and compliance. The remaining three elements are: Reorganize to manage post-acute spending. Effective cost management requires a […]