PALM CITY, Fla. and ALPHARETTA, Ga., July 11, 2017 — Optima Healthcare Solutions, a provider of cloud-based software for home health, hospice, therapy and other post-acute care providers, today announced the appointment of Jason James as Chief Information Officer. [Details about James’ extensive history in the IT realm with companies such as Earthlink, PRGX, and Servigistics are provided. An indication of his new role as CIO at Optima is indicated. A brief history of Optima Healthcare Solutions as a leading provider of cloud-based software for post-acute care providers is provided near the end of this short article.]

James has led IT operations for fast-growth technology companies for over twenty years. Prior to joining Optima, James was the Vice President of IT Operations for internet service provider EarthLink. There, he enhanced the company’s IT operations and infrastructure, including data centers and network-related hardware. Previously, James served as the Vice President of Global IT Infrastructure Support and Operations for IT service management company PRGX, where he modernized their IT infrastructure. James began his SaaS-centric career with Servigistics, a provider of service lifecycle management software that was acquired by PTC. During his tenure, James was promoted to Vice President of Global IT, and led a geographically dispersed technical staff in managing IT infrastructure and a SaaS platform that served Fortune 500 companies.

In his role at Optima, James will be responsible for leading the development and expansion of all IT services, infrastructure and operations, including applications, data centers, network operations, security, compliance and DevOps.

“Post-acute care providers have one simple request for software vendors: deliver solutions that enable them to provide great patient experiences and operate successful businesses free from concerns about their systems,” said James. “As Optima’s CIO, I’m excited to play a leadership role in delivering the performance, reliability and cost-effectiveness that our clients require.”

“Optima is rapidly growing its client base of 10,000 post-acute care sites that treat two million patients each year,” said Josh Pickus, Optima’s CEO. “As we scale up, we’re excited to add to our leadership team a consummate IT professional who will ensure that we deliver a best-in-class experience for our clients as they expand their operations.”

About Optima
Optima Healthcare Solutions is a leading provider of cloud-based software for post-acute care providers, including contract therapy companies, skilled nursing facilities, outpatient clinics, home health agencies and hospice organizations. More than 10,000 sites of service entrust Optima to deliver software that improves patient care and enhances business performance.
optimahcs.com

Schaumburg, IL — June 20, 2017 — Complia Health, a provider of home health care and hospice enterprise software, announced today the release of the long anticipated Suncoast Version 8.

The new version represents the first new release as part of the Complia Health product family. The company describes the release as introducing “a new era of innovation” for Suncoast customers.[Details are provided about key features of Suncoast Version 8 software, with special emphasis noted about key features for the hospice market.  A brief history is provided of  Complia Health, formerly Procura Healthcare Software,]

“Version 8 was released to empower hospice providers by ensuring the highest quality of care delivery, enabling increased revenue and attaining regulatory compliance,” the news release declared. “Version 8 is the first part of an aggressive initiative by Complia Heath to continue investing in the development of “best in class” software to meet the needs of homecare and hospice providers.

“We’re excited to bring Version 8 to the hospice market,” said Chris Junker, Complia Health CEO. “In today’s market, agencies need an intuitive hospice product that helps their clinicians easily and efficiently navigate through daily workflows and deliver quality hospice care to their patients. Version 8 meets these needs and more.”

Version 8 key features include:

• Effortless documentation with just a few clicks
• Intuitive and adaptable interface for easy training and reduce training time
• Documentation that flows the way you practice while insuring compliance

About Complia Health, formerly Procura Healthcare Software
Complia Health provides technology and expertise for the long-term and post-acute care market. Nearly 3,000 home health, residential, community care, and hospice organizations in the U.S., Canada and Australia count on Complia Health for the clinical, operational, and financial solutions required to profitability deliver quality care. Complia Health’s products line includes Procura, ContinuLink, Suncoast, Igea, and Progresa.
compliahealth.com

©2017 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

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Reimbursement for telehealth services took one step closer to reality recently but there are many more steps to go before home health providers can start counting their money. In April, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced Senate Bill 870 “Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic Care Act of 2017” (CHRONIC). It has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee; passage and reconciliation with any future House version is well into the future. [Kinsella summarizes the 20+-years she’s followed telehealth development and typical questions posed by potential healthcare at home telehealth users (noting in particular these 2  questions: Does it work?; and Does Medicare pay for it?)  The promise of telehealth use and reimbursement are covered in this short article, too.  Details are presented about the current, promising Telehealth bill–Senate Bill 870 known as “Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic Care Act of 2017” (CHRONIC).as are details about the promises of its being passed.]

In the 20+ years I have been following home telehealth — its uses, technical variations, and reimbursement stipulations as interpreted by CMS — I have seen uncertainty expressed within the healthcare at home industry about the value of home telehealth. There are two most-asked questions by potential users of home telehealth: Does it work?; and Does Medicare pay for it?

As for the first question, many years of pilot demonstration studies of home telehealth vital sign tracking use have produced ample evidence that remote patient monitoring supports excellent patient health outcomes. These results were obtained over recent decades particularly with congestive heart failure patients. These studies have consistently produced a resounding “yes” to question #1.

Now, about question 2. The Hatch bill, CHRONIC, means that the answer to “Does Medicare pay for telehealth?” is slightly more promising today than it was as recently as March. Rather than “no,” it has moved up a notch to “not yet but possibly soon.”

Promise of Home Telehealth Reimbursement 
Not that soon, though! And do not get distracted by less thoughtful reporting. One article in a popular health magazine, for example, was  titled, “Legislation that Would Expand Telehealth Use, Access Passes Easily in Senate Committee.” The author intimates reimbursement may be imminent because the bill was passed unanimously, but skips the detail that that was a committee vote. SB 870 still must pass through the entire Senate, then wait to see what the House does. Reimbursement is not a given yet.

What’s more, even if it becomes law, the bill does not provide for covering all telehealth services. Priority is given to costly, specialized uses such as tele-assisted home dialysis treatments and telehealth interventions for stroke patients. When these conditions are treated in conventional clinical settings, they are among the most costly for patients and for Medicare.

Targeted Care
Co-sponsor Ron Wyden (D-OR) helped pass SB-870 through the Finance Committee. He noted:

“The CHRONIC Care Act will mean more care at home and less in institutions. It’ll expand the use of life-saving technology. It places a stronger focus on primary care. It gives seniors, however they get Medicare, more tools and options to receive care specifically targeted to address their chronic illnesses and keep them healthy. Those are all important steps forward in updating the Medicare guarantee.”

Will we one day soon have targeted, convenient care for seniors, if and when the bill passes? Despite CMS’s long history of refusing to reimburse home telehealth services, there is one development in this bill’s favor. The Congressional Budget Office scored the bill and determined that use of home telehealth will reduce healthcare costs and provide direct savings to CMS. Optimism is on display in the member blog pages of the American Telemedicine Association. (https://thesource.americantelemed.org/blogs/jessica-washington/2017/05/18/cbo-greenlights-expanded-medicare-coverage-of-telehealth)

The ATA itself noted “this is the first time that CBO has scored telemedicine legislation since 2001.  In fact, the 2001 legislation erected the longstanding barriers for Medicare telehealth coverage now known as the 1834 (m) in the Social Security Act. It’s response about the decades-long halt to telehealth’s place in the healthcare arena is summed up by Gary Capistrant, ATA Chief Policy Officer, “We support any home telehealth that can physically been done, and meet professional standards.”

Audrey Kinsella, MA, MS, is HCTR’s telemedicine reporter. She has written on home telehealthcare and new technologies for home care service delivery for 20 years, in 6 books, multiple web sites, and more than 150 published articles. Audrey can be reached at audreyk3@charter.net or 828-348-5308.

©2017 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only.editor@homecaretechreport.com

Consolidation

     Cooperation

          Coordination

               Care transition 

With or without clear definition, these words are out there and care providers have been told to take them seriously. Are they goals or strategies? Attainable or pipedreams? Reimbursable or pro-bono activities? Healthcare reform has generated new concepts and set lofty patient care targets. It has also introduced questions. Are these targets attainable? And, if so, what are our first steps to start coordinating care across the continuum?

While nearly every plenary and breakout panel at this week’s Post Acute Link conference dealt with care coordination and preferred partnerships in narrow networks, one of them focused specifically on pre-acute care, the art of avoiding initial hospital admissions as well as re-admissions.

Lincoln Health brought together providers, payers, and vendors from across the post acute spectrum this week in Chicago to find ways to work together to improve patient care and control rising healthcare costs. SNF, ALF, CCRC, home health and hospice executives learned what problems they have in common and which ones are unique to each type of care. [Rowan provides details about speakers’ general consensus about providers; need to obtain and use patient data in order to provide focused and thorough patient care services. Many obstacles to getting that data are noted.  “Pre-acute care” activities–a  growing movement in healthcare at home organizations–are described in this article, along with the potential of using these activities’ results [more well  patients, more savings by insurers] to negotiate partnerships with payers.]

A general consensus emerged: Data is at the core of every successful attempt to improve patient care. Sharing data is essential but fraught with obstacles. In some cases, the obstacles are technical. Patient data does not flow easily between EMR systems from different vendors. In other cases, obstacles emerge from a sense of branding, “This is OUR data. We are happy to receive yours but you cannot have ours.” Or sometimes they are based on a legal argument, “Patient privacy laws forbid us from sharing our data.”

“Consider the effect on patient health and safety,” argues Addus Healthcare’s Diane Kumarich. “We have non-medical home care aides in homes, doing grocery shopping and preparing meals, and the acute care hospital that discharges them will not tell us if they are diabetic.” Legally sound, this argument, but dangerous to some recipients to in-home care.

Ray Darcey of Aurora at Home concurs. “There are definite advantages to being inside a healthcare system and using the same EMR,” he asserted. “Everything is more difficult when you have to ask for data instead of being able to log on and get it.” Aurora Health uses Epic.

Kumarich and Darcey participated in a panel discussion — with Shannon Abbott of Amedisys and Patty Upham from FirstHealth of the Carolinas — exploring pre-acute care. Though hailing from different home health environments in different parts of the country, the four panelists agreed on a set of guidances for any organization planning to offer pre-acute services to its acute partners.

CAVEATS

• “You may assess a patient and believe you ‘know’ how something is until you look at the data.”
• “The single most accurate predictor of whether a patient will thrive is their status as a dual-eligible. If they are, they will not!”
• “One in five patients in bundled payment plans die during the 90-day payment risk period.”
• “Your goal is ‘patient activation.’ Even more than patient engagement, this is about patients taking responsibility for their own care.

KEY ACTIVITIES

• Staff training.
• Staff buy-in to new, pre-acute program. (Ms. Upham described an entirely new orientation program her organization built from the ground up to include training about patient activation and risk stratification.)
• Less reliance on raw telehealth vital signs and more on nursing
• Incorporate care for delirium and depression.
• Perform complete telehealth system set up and medication reconciliation during the first visit.

WORKING WITH PAYERS

• Patty Upham of FirstHealth of the Carolinas related her conversation with a Medicare Advantage partner. “I showed them that we had saved them $2 million so far by reducing their rehospitalization rate by 56 percent, bringing it down to 7% over 30 days. Then I requested a grant so we could save them even more by reducing their initial hospitalization rate.”
• When negotiating partnerships, payers are beginning to demonstrate more and more interest in post-acute data. When they do see it, little or no spin is needed. The data sells itself. But it has to be targeted data about that payer’s clients.

©2017 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

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Springfield, Mo — June 07, 2017 — HEALTHCAREfirst, a leading provider of Web-based home health and hospice software, billing and coding services, and advanced analytics, has introduced “CAREpliance™,” as one of several enhancements coming this summer as part of a total system-wide refresh.

According to a company news release, CAREpliance™ is designed to support stronger documentation and better communication about patients for home health clinicians while better preparing them for looming changes in the Home Health Medicare Conditions of Participation.[Details are provided about the CAREpliance™ features:  easier to use icons and screens, for instance, which were designed with the intention of alleviating healthcare at home caregivers’ documentation burdens and instead free up their time to concentrate on customizing the patients’ plans of care. The CAREpliance™ software responds to caregivers’ assessment findings by suggesting interventions and goals for each problem. The outcome: evidence-based guidance supports improved patient outcomes and consistent clinical documentation, toward the goal of minimizing risks of audits, denials and take backs.]

CAREpliance™ users will notice a new, easier interface with a modern look to icons and clean, white work screens. The design is intended to direct the clinician’s focus to the patient by alleviating documentation burdens. When problems are identified in the assessment, the system suggests interventions and goals for each problem, allowing the clinician to customize the plan of care and build a story for that patient, something surveyors are looking more closely for in today’s site audits. Thorough, evidence-based guidance supports improved patient outcomes and consistent clinical documentation, toward the goal of minimizing risks of audits, denials and take backs.

“We are excited to bring this new technology to the home health industry,” said Steve Sablan, CIO of HEALTHCAREfirst. “We have worked closely with our customer focus groups to ensure we are addressing their needs.”

CEO J. Kevin Porter said, “Our product team has a lot of momentum and is set to serve up some exciting new things that will help home health agencies strengthen performance and meet upcoming requirements. In just a short amount of time, our software is going to look totally different and will offer significantly more value in how it addresses both compliance and convenience.”

The refreshed user interface will be released later this summer.
healthcarefirst.com

©2017 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only.editor@homecaretechreport.com

 By Tim Rowan, Editor & Publisher, Home Care Technology Report

John Damgaard is a man on a mission to revolutionize senior care. In less than five years as CEO of Minneapolis-based MatrixCare, he has directed the acquisition of LTC software company AOD, which was in turn already the parent company of home care’s Soneto software, partnered with Briggs to create eBriggs for Home Care, enticed the former CEO of rival SigmaCare to become his VP of Corporate Development, and accepted the 2017 trophy for “1st in KLAS for Long Term Care software.”

Most CEOs would take a breather after all that. Instead, Damgaard’s company announced this week the release of a new data sharing tool he believes will change the national healthcare conversation. CareCommunity retrieves patient data from any Electronic Medical Record and delivers it to any other Electronic Medical Record. It interacts with telehealth systems and Fitbits. Patients who register with CareCommunity, at no cost to them, have unbroken access to their records as they move from facility to facility to home, even as they travel around the country. Intrigued, we joined an online product demo and afterward spoke with Mr. Damgaard in his Minneapolis office.[Details are provided about the evolution of Damgaard’s company acquisitions–moving from a predominantly SNF player to instead meet broader needs of today’s Boomers. He goes on to also describe the mechanics and value of CareCommunity software and its capabilities to retrieve data from many EHRs & deliver them to other EHRS; and other patient health data that can be transferred are noted, too.]

Meeting Customer Needs
“We were predominantly a SNF player at first,” he began, “and doing well. Then our customers started to tell us, ‘good job with the SNF software but we are building Assisted Living Facilities as fast as we can. What can you do for us?’ That move made sense for them because it would balance their payer mix, give them better margins, etc. Besides, Baby Boomers are not going to wash ashore into Skilled Nursing Facilities first. They are going to stop somewhere along the way. We needed to respond.”

First, the CEO continued, MatrixCare acquired a “purpose-built platform” for senior living facilities and added it to the company portfolio. But the customers kept moving. “‘Now we’re getting into home and community-based services,’ they told us. So we acquired AOD and Soneto. Today, the home care division is the fastest growing business segment in the company.”

Positioned to service the entire post acute spectrum, MatrixCare grew to over 600 employees, with software that touches 15% to 20% of the senior population. From that vantage point, the problem of care coordination and data interoperability surfaced.

“There is not enough money in the entire country to care for people the way we have been,” he told us. “We have to find a way to move people as quickly as possible from high-cost to lower-cost care centers and to enhance patient transitions and care coordination while we are doing it. Every time someone falls through the cracks, every time a test is unnecessarily repeated, every time a medication list is inaccurate, care becomes more expensive and more dangerous.” CareCommunity was introduced to address that problem.

Like a private HIE
This is the trajectory that led to the development of a data exchange system that puts the patient at the center of the equation. Once enrolled, patients or their advocates can demand, under the law, to have their health record delivered to CareCommunity, from any EHR in which it is stored. Once the system has a record, it can deliver the data to any other EHR.

CareCommunity can also be set up to automatically collect vital signs from commercial grade telehealth devices and from consumer devices such as Fitbits. Patients can add their own over-the-counter medications and supplements, which become part of the record. Families can be given access to the data. Each user type sees data displayed in a unique way.

Case managers see a list of the patients they manage or have managed, from all facilities or homes where they reside. They can drill down on one patient’s data to see recent vitals, medications, diagnoses from all clinicians and all EHRs. They can send and receive secure messages to physicians.

Physicians also see their own patients’ data and can see at a glance where each person is on the road toward his or her goals. They can see all medications and diagnoses, read notes from other clinicians and communicate with them and with the patient via the secure messaging system. These other clinicians may work out of different facilities and use different EHRs.

Patients see the same data, though displayed differently. In addition to records automatically added from ALFs, SNFs, hospitals, physicians and home health nurses, they also see a custom to-do list of the behaviors they must adopt and tasks they must complete in order to comply with their care plan. They see appointments with all care professionals; they see their medication schedules; and they can register their Fitbit or other wearable with the system so it will begin to read and record that data.

This is where Damgaard says his software shines. “This is not a document management system,” he asserted. “We do not simply store PDF pages electronically; someone has to read through those to find the one piece of data they need. No, we tear each document apart, ‘automagically,’ and distribute each individual data point to the appropriate CareCommunity area. It becomes part of the record and searchable.

Dual revenue sources planned
CareCommunity will generate revenue for MatrixCare through fees to healthcare providers and payers and through targeted ads that appear on patient screens. Damgaard expects that the advertising revenue will eventually surpass the fees ($10 per month per licensed caregiver) and perhaps one day make them unnecessary. Medical and non-medical care organizations can subscribe to use CareCommunity, but patients can become users on their own.

Calling the system “a ‘Private HIE’ for the senior population,” Damgaard said it became possible when three barriers were overcome. “The technological barrier is already down, via CCD and CCDA standards. Every certified EHR platform must be able to produce a standardized document. The political barrier was shattered by the 21-Century CURES Act. It doesn’t matter anymore if care providers do not want to share Protected Health Information. It belongs to the patient and they must give it to them upon request. Otherwise there is a fine of $1 million per refusal.

“The third barrier is more complicated. We have navigated it with some of the most expensive lawyers on the planet. As a result of that, the government has finally said unequivocally that the health record belongs to the patient. It is not the ‘property’ of any provider or vendor. Who she chooses to grant access rights to is solely her decision. And that is the trump card that rules over all related legal rubrics. When a person is under care, HIPAA regulations are clear about how to share PHI. It is when someone is well and between care episodes and their record request would move data across state lines that it comes under the auspices of the Federal Trade Commission. Then it gets complicated. We engaged the law firm that represented Samsung against Apple and finally got the government to make a definitive declaration that the patient owns his own records.”

Signing up
Seniors will normally get into CareCommunity through their healthcare provider but they can apply directly. Providers using MatrixCare’s home health EHR can enroll their patients today, for example. Should a senior choose to enroll independently, he submits the names of all the organizations he has ever used for care and CareCommunity requests records on his behalf. There is no cost to senior patients themselves.

Future developments are planned through MatrixCare’s selection as a Microsoft Health partner. They are currently in the process of embedding the software giant’s HIPAA-compliant Skype version. Another enhancement will add face-to-face telehealth visits to the hundreds of telehealth devices already connected.
carecommunity.com
matrixcare.com

©2017 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only.editor@homecaretechreport.com

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In four short years, Commonwell Health Alliance has blossomed from a handful of founding members to more than 60. Announced at HIMSS 2013, the organization of EHR vendors was created to solve the data silo problem that was first made a national priority by President George W. Bush in 2004. With that announcement, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT was created and the Secretary of Health and Human Services was instructed to cooperate in building a national health information exchange by 2014.

When only a handful of siloed Health Information Exchanges had been built by 2012, and it was becoming apparent the government was going to miss its 10-year deadline, the industry stepped in. Seven founding members, including McKesson, Allscripts and Cerner and a few physician practice EHR vendors such as Greenway and Athena Health cobbled together a competition-free alliance and built a data exchange network.

Interoperability specialist Nick Knowlton was at that first meeting, representing Greenway. He has since moved over to Brightree, a ResMed Company, where he continues efforts to promote interoperability through Commonwell. The first thing he did was to make Brightree the first post-acute member. We spoke with him at last month’s Home Care Association of Colorado meeting, where he was a featured speaker.[Rowan provides details on wider-reach of patient record data to be included in the Commonwell Health Alliance records and the needed development of national patients’ identification record numbers, Information is also provided about the Commonweal Health Alliance–and its role as the leading health industry vendor-led organization for storing and managing patient health data nationwide.]

“When it became obvious the 2014 deadline was going to be missed, the head of the Office of the National Coordinator called a meeting,” Knowlton remembers. “I was there with Greenway; Cerner was present and McKesson sent its Relay Health people, their subsidiary that has clinical connectivity software. They told National Coordinator for ONC, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, that they had to have a national patient ID number. With that, they would have the hook they needed to exchange patient data among disparate EHR systems. Mostashari made it very clear to us that politics would never let that happen. ‘Do it yourself,’ he told us, ‘or I will. And you won’t like my solution.’”

Knowlton added that those early vendors realized they had to leave their corporate badges at the door in order to get it done. “They decided the solution that would best promote adoption was to build connectivity into each EHR, not force users to log onto a separate system,” Knowlton said. “The system we came up with uses Relay Health as its connectivity engine; it is working well and most likely the main reason we are over 60 members today.”

When Brightree became a member, Knowlton suggested adding features to the service that would bring into the shared data mix items needed by post-acute providers, such as medication lists, previous diagnoses, and the like. Functions have also been added that enable patients to gather their own health data.

Regarding expanding Commonwell membership, Knowlton says he is torn between two positives. “We are perfectly happy to get the advantages of being the only home health and hospice vendor in the Alliance,” he grins, “but I also understand that it would be best for patients if every vendor joined.”

©2017 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only.editor@homecaretechreport.com