New reimbursement method will compensate SNFs for caring for medically complex residents Editor’s note: Effective Oct. 1, 2019, your SNF customers began receiving Medicare reimbursement based on a new model of payment, called the Patient Driven Payment Model, or PDPM. This article, edited and reprinted from December 2018 Repertoire, discusses how PDPM may affect SNFs’ … [Read more...]
October 19
Click Here to Read (w link to pdf) Publisher’s Letter Lab and diagnostics: Where will you fit in? Specialty Clinics Retail, urgent care and other specialty clinics are expanding their service offerings Contracting Executive Profile Kate Polczynski, Associate vice president, procurement, Geisinger, Danville, Pennsylvania The … [Read more...]
The Heat is On
Post-acute providers must reduce readmissions. They could use some help. About 20% – or one in five – Medicare beneficiaries who are sent to a skilled nursing facility from a hospital are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days, points out Dr. David Gifford, senior vice president of quality and regulatory affairs and chief medical officer for the American Health Care … [Read more...]
SNFs at Short End of the Stick?
Savings for joint-replacement care often come at the expense of post-acute providers. The three-year-old bundled payment program for joint replacement has resulted in a reduction in average episode payments for Medicare. But the reductions have come largely at the expense of institutional post-acute-care settings, particularly skilled nursing facilities, not only in reduced … [Read more...]
The Rules Keep Changing
There’s a lot to keep your post-acute-care customers awake at night. Much of it is coming from Washington. Post-acute care providers and the government are, for better or worse, an inseparable pair. This month, Repertoire looks at how three regulatory developments are affecting your customers: Readmissions penalties/incentives. Bundled payment programs. The newly … [Read more...]
The Greatest Hits of 2019
Lab/diagnostics The year’s news about lab and diagnostics The year 2019 has been full of lab- and diagnostics-related news. Some developments point to a future far away – others right at hand. In either case, they offer points of conversation to share with customers. Artificial intelligence and the lab AI was one of the biggest stories of the year. For example, in … [Read more...]
Lab and diagnostics: Where will you fit in?
Laboratory equipment and products remain a crucial component of the sales rep’s offering. But, like everything in healthcare, the market is changing. Molecular point-of-care tests are getting faster and less expensive. Liquid biopsy will probably transform cancer detection. And providers will most likely find that their diagnostic skills are enhanced by artificial intelligence. … [Read more...]
You and AI
Medical devices are getting smarter. Time to get caught up. In May the FDA granted marketing clearance to a device called eMurmur ID, by Ottawa, Canada-based eMurmur®. The device is mobile- and web-based, and it operates in conjunction with an electronic stethoscope. It uses advanced machine learning to identify and classify pathologic and innocent heart murmurs, the absence … [Read more...]
Wearables and the supply chain
Wearables: Are they anything like the ‘real thing?’ Editor’s note: This is part of a continuing series on wearables and mobile medical applications, and their potential impact on providers, patients and Repertoire readers. Future articles will address such questions as: How are physicians incorporating these devices into their everyday practice? How are Medicare and other … [Read more...]
A ‘gentleman’ rep
Forty years after beginning his medical sales career, despite all the changes that have occurred in the industry, Tom Pruitt has clung to one essential element in sales: Always be a gentleman. It is a lesson he learned from two mentors -- his older brother, Lee, and another independent rep, Lee Walters. “They gave me a selling style that was used when they started, and it … [Read more...]