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Transition to MIPS – Top Docs Radio

July 29, 2016 by CW

Transition to MIPS

On this week’s MAG episode, I hosted Dr. Adrienne Mims, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Medicare Quality Improvement for Alliant Quality, to talk about the transition to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

Adrienne Mims, M.D., MPH, is the vice president and chief medical officer for Alliant GMCF. Board certified in family medicine and geriatrics, she has more than 30 years of primary care, consultative and home care geriatric experience. Dr. Mims serves on a number of boards, including the American Health Quality Association (the trade association for Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations), the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians, and the PCPI (the national organization that develops quality measures for all specialties).

In addition, the MAG member serves on the NCQA Geriatric Measurement Advisory Panel and the NCQA Clinical Programs Committee. Dr. Mims was the medical director of the Georgia Medicaid Management Program, and she was the director of prevention health promotion and research with The Southeast Permanente Medical Group in Atlanta.

Dr. Mims completed her undergraduate training at George Washington University, her medical school at Stanford University, her residency at the Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew Medical Center, and her geriatric fellowship at the West Los Angeles VA. She also has an MPH in epidemiology from UCLA. It is imperative for medical practices to make a successful transition to Medicare’s new Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

Instead of the EHR (Electronic Health Record) or the PQRS (Physician Quality Reporting System) or the Value-based Payment Modifier programs, the government will employ a single payment platform

– which is the result of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) that was signed into law in 2015. The new payment model will be based on a 100-point MIPS Composite Performance Score. That CPS will determine your Medicare payment adjustment – either up or down.

This is scheduled to commence in 2019, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will use the 2017 calendar year as the basis for the initial reimbursement – keeping mind this is not an optional process.

Special Guest:

Dr. Adrienne Mims, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Medicare Quality Improvement, Alliant Quality

Reducing Hospital-acquired Infections

July 25, 2016 by CW

ebola — Jay Shaffer isn’t afraid of Ebola

Reducing Hospital-acquired Infections

Jay and I sat down with Sam Perkins, CEO of Pūrgenix™, a company that has developed a technology that enables healthcare organizations to contain, and in fact, reduce rates of occurrence of hospital-acquired infections. It is well known that pathogens such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile are challenging to treat and equally challenging to eradicate from a care environment once they have taken hold. The Pūrgenix™ platform addresses a component that is often overlooked in dealing with these dangerous organisms—the air.

Sam shared how they saw a need for a new solution to eliminating illness-causing organisms from the hospital environment, ultimately developing a system that is custom-designed and installed to be installed into the building’s air handling units. The Pūrgenix™ system employs powerful UV lights that use energy to kill air-borne organisms as they pass into the air handler from the return and again on the way back to the environment on the downstream side.

He shared some use-case examples where client hospitals were able to successfully reduce occurrences of infections for their patients, as well as experiencing a measurable reduction in absenteeism among their employees due to illness.

Sam also explained that deposits, including bioburden that is created by bacteria, as thin as a micron (a piece of paper is ~6 microns thick) can significantly reduce the cooling efficiency of a building’s air handling unit. By preventing a build-up of bacteria within the unit on the cooling coils, the deposit of bioburden is eliminated, leading to marked increases in energy cost to condition the environment of the building.

Pūrgenix™ creates PūrHospitals™, an environment in which patients and employees experience a purer

environment where they can heal and work. Hospitals deploying the system can advertise their status as PūrHospitals™, letting patients in the community know their environment is safer with less risk of hospital-acquired infection. As Mark Haney, President at WellStar Paulding Hospital, said about the Pūrgenix™ solution at the launch of their new hospital: “…we still have to do the basics, but we have the building working for us now.”

Special Guest:

Sam Perkins, CEO, Pūrgenix™

Genetic Testing – Top Docs Radio

July 22, 2016 by CW

Genetic Testing

Our partner, Tanya Mack of Womens Telehealth hosted experts from MNG Labs to learn about genetic testing and how it can help parents and physicians make educated decisions during pregnancy as well as in patient care.

Check back soon for more information!

AGLCC Procurement Spotlight

July 22, 2016 by CW

AGLCC Procurement Spotlight

On July’s episode of Midtown Business Radio with Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (AGLCC) co-hosts, Emma Foulkes, of Foulkes & Steele Wealth Management, and Bruce Logue, of Corbell Group–Keller Williams, hosted Sandy Mollett, of First Data, Dan Dunlop, of Dunlop Productions, and former AGLCC President, Sheila Merritt.

One of the highlights of the show focused on the recent Procurement Spotlight hosted by Cox Communications. Dan Dunlop talked about participating in the Shark Tank competition featuring 3 area businesses vying for the top spot, selected by Cox Communications executives doing the judging. The entrepreneurs had 5 minutes each to pitch their business solutions before the winner (Dan Dunlop) was selected.

The Procurement Spotlight allowed attendees to meet Cox Communications procurement executives and learn about supplier opportunities and hone their ability to share their businesses with prospective clients.

We were also joined by Sandy Mollett of First Data. First Data is a global leader in commerce-enabling technology and solutions, serving approximately six million business locations and 4,000 financial institutions in 118 countries around the world. The company’s 24,000 owner-associates are dedicated to helping companies, from start-ups to the world’s largest corporations, conduct commerce every day by securing and processing more than 2,500 transactions per second and $1.9 trillion per year. Around the world, First Data simplifies institutions and their customers.

Sandy shared how First data is hosting AGLCC University on August 2nd for networking with First Data’s SVP of Strategic Sourcing and members of his team. Stay for a dynamic presentation of small businesses pitching for a Small Business Extreme Makeover and learn how they’re preparing their businesses for the next wave of growth!

Emma and Bruce were also very pleased to re-introduce Sheila Merritt, a former President of AGLCC, who is coming back to the AGLCC leadership team as Corporate Partner Relationship Manager to foster relationships with enterprises in the community and promote engagement with LGBTBE entrepreneurs.

Special Guests:

Sheila Merritt, Corporate Partner Relationship Manager, AGLCC

Sandy Mollett, SVP, Strategy & Programs / Co-Chair, Atlanta Diversity & Cultural Council, First Data

Dan Dunlop, Founder/President, Dunlop Productions

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth – Top Docs Radio

July 21, 2016 by CW

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth

Women’s Telehealth’s Tanya Mack, interviews the company’s CEO and Medical Director, Dr. C. Anne Patterson, discussing maternal-fetal medicine as a specialty, and how they are now able to capitalize on telemedicine technology to deliver high-risk maternity care to a wider patient population.

Maternal fetal medicine is rare sub-specialty of obstetrics which delivers high risk obstetric care. These

specialists manage complex complications of pregnancy such as: multiple gestations, chronic medical

conditions during pregnancy, gestational diabetes and fetal abnormalities. The CDC and March of Dimes both estimate that in 2015 in the US, approximately 1:10 babies in the US are born prematurely.

GA ranks 50/50 for maternal death and 42/50 for infant mortality. Getting access to maternal fetal medicine services is often difficult as there are only about 1200 MFM physicians in the US and most are not located in rural areas.

Clearly, there is a need for many physicians of different specialties in rural areas and maternal-fetal medicine is one of them. OB practices and hospitals in these areas can engage with Womens Telehealth to be able to help these patients avoid having to spend long travel times in cars to be seen by these needed specialists. This allows them to stay closer to home and receive care in their local community.

But this solution has value for urban practices as well. There are very few maternal-fetal specialists nationwide—only ~20 or so in Georgia. By deploying the Womens Telehealth solution, these city-based groups and hospitals can also provide access to this specialty care for their patients, preventing potential loss of the patient to other facilities/groups in the community that do have maternal-fetal specialists on campus.

Special Guest:

Dr. C. Anne Patterson, CEO/Medical Director, Womens Telehealth

Talking Compliance – Top Docs Radio

July 15, 2016 by CW

Talking Compliance

On this week’s episode with Medical Association of Georgia, healthcare law expert, Liz Schoen stopped by to share information regarding compliance with current healthcare law and regulations on Top Docs Radio.

Liz Schoen has more than 25 years of experience in the health care field. She serves as a legal and business advisor for health care providers and businesses. Schoen began her legal career as an assistant regional counsel for the U.S. Department of Health, Human Services in Atlanta. Later, she served as the general counsel and chief compliance and privacy officer at the Harbin Clinic – a large multi-specialty, physician-owned medical practice in northwest Georgia.

While there, she was responsible for advising the executive team, board of managers, physicians, and staff on a variety of federal and state complex legal and regulatory matters related to health care and compliance. Schoen drafted, reviewed, and negotiated the majority of contracts for the organization as well as developing and enhancing its compliance and privacy programs and protocols.

She also worked as hospital counsel for the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, and she was the vice president of compliance and assistant general counsel for the Georgia Hospital Association. Schoen has a law degree from Emory University School of Law.

Complying with the staggering number of complex federal and state laws and regulations is a daunting task for physicians and their staff, regardless of the medical practice’s size. Distinguishing between marketing “hype” from outside consultants versus practical reality is another challenge faced when trying to allocate proper resources that don’t appear to directly impact patient care.

The first step for medical practices is understanding what compliance issues are and how they pose risk to their practice. The laws continuously change and the next step is understanding how and where to prioritize staff time and resources. Lastly, physicians and their staff need to understand what best practices are and compare such best practices to what is in their own shop and proactively develop solutions to fill-in any gaps.

Special Guest:

Liz Schoen, Attorney, E.S. Schoen & Affiliates

Flawless Execution

July 12, 2016 by CW

Flawless Execution

On this week’s episode I sat down with founder of Afterburner Inc., Jim “Murph” Murphy stopped by to talk about their innovative Flawless Execution strategy for leadership and sales growth. Murph has a unique and powerful mix of leadership skills in both the military and business worlds. After initially spending a couple of years in sales after college, successfully helping his company significantly increase their sales, he happened to meet an Air Force pilot who made a big impression on him.

He joined the U.S. Air Force where he learned to fly the F-15, ultimately logging over 1,200 hours as an instructor pilot in the F-15 and accumulated over 3,200 hours of flight time in other high-performance aircraft. As the 116th Fighter Wing’s Chief of Training for the Georgia Air National Guard, Murph’s job was to keep 42 combat-trained fighter pilots ready to deploy worldwide within 72 hours. He also flew missions to Central America, Asia, Central Europe and the Middle East as a Flight Leader.

Before his service in the U.S. Air Force, Murph had a successful career in imaging equipment sales, where he helped increase his company’s sales by 500%. Years later, he became Director of Sales for a small paint company. The concepts he developed and utilized in business and the U.S. Air Force would become known as Flawless Execution. By applying Flawless Execution’s continuous cycle of planning, briefing, executing, and debriefing, he increased his new employer’s sales from $5 million to $52 million per year.

It was clear that any business or organization could benefit from these same concepts, so Murph launched Afterburner Incorporated in early 1996.

Today, the Afterburner team shares their story and their Flawless Execution approach to improving leadership, team cohesion, and sales to executives at over 200 events per year.

Special Guest:

Jim “Murph” Murphy, CEO/Founder, Afterburner Inc.

Legal Considerations in Telemedicine – Top Docs Radio

July 8, 2016 by CW

Legal Considerations in Telemedicine

This week, Tanya hosted healthcare and telemedicine legal experts, Bill Boling and Mason Reid, of Boling and Company, to talk about legal considerations in telemedicine.

Affordable, quality telemedicine is on almost everyone’s mind! Telemedicine is a tool that is being used more frequently to provide access when and where needed and to decrease costs. One analyst recently predicted that 2020, the telemedicine market would be worth $36B dollars.

Although technology improvements have enable a new generation of telemedicine services, policy makers have been slower to adopt telemedicine. Recently, however, a number of telemedicine related bills have been introduced that could fuel escalated telemedicine adoption by patients, payers and providers.

Bill and Mason discussed such topics as parity law, telemedicine informed consent, provider licensure requirements, telepresenter regulations, provider-patient encounter requirements, security and telemedicine clinical standards of care.

Special Guests:

Bill Boling, Founder, Boling and Company

Mason Reid, Associate, Boling and Company

ChronicCareIQ

July 5, 2016 by CW

ChronicCareIQ

This week Jay and I sat down with Matt Ethington, CEO of ChronicCareIQ to learn how this technology company is providing physicians and hospitals with tools that empower them to better manage patients with chronic illnesses. The Affordable Care Act has put in place measures around patient outcomes that can affect how much the provider is reimbursed for care they deliver. Managing patients with chronic illnesses is time-consuming and requires much patient education and follow up to facilitate compliance with the recommended care plan. The ChronicCareIQ platform not only provides the practice or hospital with an efficient tool for engaging patients, it also provides documentation of required patient contacts, along with current health status data such as glucose measurements, blood pressure, weight, and others.

Matt shared how he is a patient dealing with a chronic illness, Type I Diabetes. His experiences along the way helped him see how care delivery can be somewhat disconnected at times and inspired him to think about ways to bridge gaps in communication and give providers a better way to know what is happening with their patient between visits.

ChronicCareIQ enables healthcare providers to keep tabs on fragile and chronic patients through their smart phones. Recognizing the impact on patient outcomes when effective chronic disease management measures are in place, Medicare has begun to reimburse for patient engagement performed through the platform, allowing providers to simultaneously automatically meet compliance requirements, and measurably reduce call volumes. Identified as a “Best Practice” by leading consulting groups and with patient engagement rates that exceed 80% on an average weekly basis, practices, hospitals, or health systems can identify decompensating patients in real time, manage risk to prevent unnecessary hospitalization or ED visits, and advance material steps with payment reforms.

Special Guest:

Matt Ethington, CEO, ChronicCareIQ