Decline of Telehealth During the Pandemic and After

Decline of Telehealth During the Pandemic and After

The pandemic has forced healthcare organizations to rely heavily on telehealth services. In 2020, virtual visits accounted for more than a quarter of all outpatient visits in the U.S., and they’ve been steadily increasing since then. But there is a flip side to this trend. Recent data shows that telehealth is declining in healthcare, which could create a burden for both healthcare systems and patients. Let’s take a look at why this is happening and what can be done about it.
Reasons behind the decline  There are several factors driving the decline in telehealth utilization in healthcare settings. One reason is cost…

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The Importance of Improving Healthcare’s Cyber Resilience

The Importance of Improving Healthcare’s Cyber Resilience

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Healthcare organizations have always needed to be prepared for unexpected events, from natural disasters to pandemic surges. Increasingly, cyberattacks must factor into their response plans, especially as threats grow more sophisticated and coordinated.
Ninety-six percent of executives across industries consider cyber resilience to be highly important to their businesses, according to a 2022 Cisco report. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they experienced a security incident that affected their resilience, with a majority happening over the past two years.
As cyberattacks continue to make headlines, organizations should think in terms of…

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Health benefits platform Collective Health announces layoffs

Health benefits platform Collective Health announces layoffs

Collective Health, a health benefits management platform, has laid off 54 employees as it arranges its workforce to better align with customer needs. The company’s CEO, Ali Diab, announced the layoffs on LinkedIn, saying the employees were being let go due to a “workforce reduction,” while urging companies that may encounter those employees during the hiring process to provide them with “strong consideration.”
Collective Health acts as a third-party health benefits administrator, bringing companies’ various benefits into one platform to let employers manage their offerings while assisting employees with navigating their healthcare.
“We can confirm that as part of a restructuring of our workforce,…

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Retrieving Billions in Overpayments by CMS

Retrieving Billions in Overpayments by CMS

Amid swirling accusations that Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) are overbilling the U.S. government and calls for better oversight, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced in early February that it would investigate overbilling by those plans. They expect to recoup 4.7 billion dollars through this program.
This article focuses on the relatively young technologies that enable CMS to uncover overbillings, whether they be errors or fraud. The article is based on an interview with Kel Pults, chief clinical officer and vice president of MediQuant. A future article will explain how Medicare Advantage plans are trying to improving data collection and reporting,…

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Community Health Systems reports GoAnywhere hacked

Community Health Systems reports GoAnywhere hacked

Community Health Systems filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was notified by a third-party vendor for secure file transfer of an incident that resulted in unauthorized disclosure of its patient data.WHY IT MATTERS
The GoAnywhere managed file transfer platform first warned about a zero-day remote code injection exploit on February 1, according to the technical bulletin posted by noted security researcher Brian Krebs on Infosec.exchange. 
“The attack vector of this exploit requires access to the administrative console of the application, which in most cases is accessible only from within a private company network, through [virtual private network] or by allow-listed IP…

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HIMSSCast: Epic leaders on data-driven clinical trial innovation

HIMSSCast: Epic leaders on data-driven clinical trial innovation

The challenges of designing effective clinical trials, finding the right people to participate in them and building trial cohorts that are representative of the population at large, have been well-documented.With its recent Life Sciences initiative, Epic has set its sights on data-driven insights to improve the development of new therapeutics and interventions. That includes improving all parts of the clinical trial process – from how physicians educate their patients about potential cohorts, matching and connecting patients with promising research and helping make sure those studies are optimally beneficial for as many people as possible. Epic is already helping its provider customers…

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What the metaverse and virtual reality can contribute to healthcare

What the metaverse and virtual reality can contribute to healthcare

The so-called metaverse and virtual reality are up-and-coming technologies that could offer healthcare quite a bit.Medical practitioners can test out the effectiveness of new surgical methods in the metaverse before attempting on real patients. And as an extension of telehealth, medical professionals can use virtual reality to access patients and examine them virtually.
What exactly is the metaverse? How does virtual reality work? What can they contribute to healthcare? And where will these technologies offer innovations in the years to come?
To get answers to these questions, we sat down with Pari Natarajan, CEO of Zinnov, a global management and consulting firm focusing…

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Larry Saves the Canadian Healthcare System – The Musical – Fun Friday

Larry Saves the Canadian Healthcare System – The Musical – Fun Friday

Satire + Music + Comedy + Healthcare. What’s not to love?
This full-length musical from Sara Kreindler perfectly captures the challenges and frustrations in the Canadian Healthcare System. It tells the story of a eager young healthcare analyst, Larry, who is newly hired by the Canadian government to help “fix” the healthcare system. Comedy and eye-rolling ensues as Larry visits an over-crowded ER and tries to navigate the multiple layers of government and administration involved in healthcare.
Even though the musical is about the Canadian Healthcare System, there are many parts that Americans will find familiar. Episode 4 is where Larry learns the…

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