Patients who participate in accountable care organizations (ACO) and care management teams may have fewer hospitalizations and ED visits and lower Medicare spending, according to a recent study in Health Affairs. Care management is a cornerstone of ACO interventions.
Compiling the statistics for insider threats to patient privacy is easy. It’s the mitigation of these risks that takes time, strategy, and commitment. According to the January 2017 Protenus Breach Barometer, internal health system employees were responsible for 58.4% of breached patient data during January 2017.
Let's look at one specific area where case managers can make a difference: reducing hospital-acquired anemia (HAA). This condition is often the result of blood draws performed cumulatively—and sometimes excessively—as part of laboratory testing.The prevalence of HAA can be exacerbated by another form of inappropriate medical care—in this case, laboratory tests. The goal is to ensure a patient only undergoes laboratory tests he or she truly needs.
Regulatory compliance reforms have forced CMS to set the bar high for meeting evaluation and management (E/M) standards. This is especially true for clinical documentation improvement (CDI) performance for coding and billing level four and five patient visits in outpatient settings.
