Medicare and Medicaid Services join to strengthen safety surveillance for medications issued to Veterans The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced an agreement that greatly improves drug safety monitoring of prescriptions, including opioids. The agreement, which was formalized March 21, will give VA the ability to monitor medical prescriptions issued…

Newest eMedicare Tool Provides Valuable Information to Mobile Users The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (@CMSGov) launched a new app that gives consumers a modernized Medicare experience with direct access on a mobile device to some of the most-used content on Medicare.gov. The new “What’s Covered” app lets people with Original Medicare, caregivers and others quickly see whether…

CMS Action for Home Health Agencies Puts Value Over Volume and Advances MyHealthEData Initiative The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (@CMSGov) proposed significant changes to the Home Health Prospective Payment System to strengthen and modernize Medicare, drive value, and focus on individual patient needs rather than volume of care. Specifically, CMS is proposing changes to improve access to…

By Teri Thomas, EVP Global Sales, Marketing & Strategy, Orion Health Twitter: @OrionHealth Researchers say they can. Health Information Exchanges, or HIEs, are hubs for sharing clinical and administrative data across the boundaries of healthcare organizations and the healthcare community. Unfortunately, many were put in place without experienced leadership and without sustainable business models, frequently leading to business failure and erosion…

By Karen B. DeSalvo, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., and Andy Slavitt/ Acting Administrator, CMS Seven years ago, Congress passed a law to spur the country to digitize the health care experience for Americans and connect doctor’s practices and hospitals, thereby modernizing patient care through the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Incentive Programs, also known as “Meaningful Use.” Before this shift began, many…

How To Get Involved Submit Your Comments By Rod Baird Twitter: @rod99309 A few days before Independence Day, 2014, CMS invited the provider community to join it in the current version of participatory democracy; commenting on the 2015 Draft Medicare Physicians Fee Schedule. Since then, I’ve read and re-read the proposal and began to distribute […] The post The 2015…