by Barbara Rosenblum Contributing to a string of stories about questionable business practices by “big business hospice” is the Huffington Post article “Hospice, Inc.” of June 19, 2014. This and other articles, such as a June 26, 2014 article in the Washington Post, all tell a story, but they do not tell the story. It’s deeply disappointing when these unfortunate experiences […]
HEALTHCAREfirst and Pinnacle Quality Insight; Briggs Healthcare and Footprints EMR Solutions; and Interoperability Alliance and CommonWell Health Alliance are among the companies highlighted in this issue’s Vendor Watch. Each company’s significant activity is described in the short articles that appear in this Vendor Watch. lifHome Health and Hospice CAHPS® Surveys Web-based home health […]
Strategic Healthcare Programs recently announced that it has named Christopher M. Attaya its Vice President of Business Intelligence. Chris had been the CFO of the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston in Charlestown, Massachusetts from 2010 through 2013, and president and CEO of Partners Home Care, Inc. in nearby Waltham before that. SHP founder and CEO […]
This week, the Visiting Nurse Associations of America released the latest in its pathway to best practices, the Blueprint for Excellence, focused on hospice and palliative care. Noting the rise in hospice use and spending for Medicare beneficiaries, VNAA convened leading subject matter experts and clinicians from its membership, academia and accrediting bodies to […]
“Suffocated” “Frustrated” “Nervous” “Frightened” We asked readers whether they had noticed an uptick in the frequency of payment denials, ADRs, ZPIC audits and dings for documentation errors. Your answers revealed that there is a lot of frustration out there, and it has two sources: frustration with commission-hungry Medicare contractors who find errors where there are […]
By Liz Seegert It would be difficult to assemble a more diverse group of experts. With backgrounds spanning hospitals, sales and marketing, managed care, technology, and program management, panelists at April’s “Health Care in Transition” seminar pooled their real-world experiences and cautioned attendees that home care’s future will not be “business as usual” […]
Relias Learning, the online training leader that was formed by a merger among Silverchair Learning, Essential Learning, Care2Learn and the Hospice Education Network, is in the news with two major announcements this month. The Cary, North Carolina company has added more than 90 new palliative care courses to its library. At the same time, […]
By Ann McCaughan, BSN, RN, PhD(c) During every nurse’s career there are patients that touch our lives and remain in our memories forever. For me, Jack was one of those patients. I cared for him from 1996 to 1998 as a cardiovascular homecare nurse. Jack had been denied a heart transplant option due to […]
One of two segments of this “Vendor Watch”–on, The Procura Group of C0mpanies: This year marks 25 years as a global provider of software for home care, hospice, community care, aged, disability and residential care organizations by the Procura Group of Companies. Founded in 1989, the company is comprised of the Procura Home and Community […]
Hugh Hale is certain that his company made the right decision to purchase software after years of success building its own. The CIO of the nation’s largest not-for-profit home health provider, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, talked to us about their recently announced contract with Delta Health Technologies. HCTR: You […]
