Are your Patients Happy?
What do CQMs, recent Medicare updates and the health center down the road have in common ? An increased focus on the quality of patient care and better patient communication ! There’s been a lot of dust raised in recent times about physicians who rush through appointments.
Being Sidelined and Neglected…
Patients repeatedly complained in local tabloids and social networking sites about long waits and unfriendly staff. Physicians groaned about the constant need to stay on top of evolving guidelines and frequent updates. It is never easy for anyone during a period of transition.
Towards a Patient Centered Practice…
A Medicare program announced recently is going to push physicians to make that follow-up call ! Doctors will be paid for following up on their services after a patient discharges. Phone calls and other forms of communication and management activities will be reimbursed by Medicare.
A Carrot and Stick Approach…
A value based payment modifier is also in the offing. It could either penalize or reward healthcare professionals based on the quality of their patient care. These updates and changes again emphasize on practices becoming more patient centered. The pressure on physicians to report more meaningful and patient centric services is escalating.
Attainable of Course !
Is it possible for medical providers to reach the benchmarks set for them ?
The upside is that ehr and emr are set to pave the way for better clinical documentation. There are more softwares and tools to track down and store information.
But the flipside is that practices need to hire additional workforce to handle data management tasks to help physicians concentrate on patient care. Working with a third party biller or data management firm can help practices contain costs. And give physicians the time and space they need to focus on what matters, patient care.
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