There are a number of legends speculating how the custom of gift-giving began circa Holiday time. Chances are, however, the giving of presents was the result of the Christian church adopting certain customs associated with the mid-December Roman feast of Saturnalia.
Whatever the origin is, there seems to be a wish list for almost anything every December, and this year we shamelessly jumped on the bandwagon. So without further ado, check out our Christmas gift list for your practice, composed of trends, items, and other ideas we think you’d benefit from the most.
Fair Pay For Docs
It’s important we reexamine the value of primary care physician services, particularly with regards to E&M codes. This way we can reflect on the importance of chronic and preventive modes of care.
Fair compensation should also include paying for care management and certain remote encounters such as emailing.
Fix the Sustainable Growth Rate Issue
It’s about time the sustainable growth rate dilemma is solved once and for all, so we can avoid the time and money wasted on annulling annual cuts to Medicare payments for physicians.
Big Data Overlords
Large data sets could mean better treatment for diabetes or advances in curing cancer. Not to mention the administrative and financial benefits – more data means more effective treatments and a sort of ‘what works and what doesn’t’ approach to care, both of which would inevitably save you money.
Make Meaningful Use Affordable
The most expensive EHRs, the “fully integrated” type with all the bells and whistles, aren’t always the best solutions – they’re often clunky, don’t offer the kind of Meaningful Use support you need, and are exceedingly expensive.
With recent studies indicating EHR systems reduce variation in health disparities, it’s time to make things affordable.
Real Interoperability
This leads us to our next item – interoperability, a near-taboo word in the world of EHR vendors. Encouraging real interoperability and integration that helps patients and physicians can’t be done if it doesn’t become more economically and technically viable.
Patient-centered Care vs. Population Health
There is no ‘versus’ here, actually. Healthcare should be able to operate on both levels – your practice will respond to the needs of the individual patient, while enough information must be accumulated to highlight trends in a given patient population.
Hint: EHRs would be a good tool for this.
Optimized EHRs and PM Systems
You’ve implemented EHRs and PM systems without ensuring your data is complete and all-encompassing. Your job isn’t done after go-live – getting health IT systems right is a meticulous task and requires collaboration from all users at your practice.
Integration of Primary and Mental Health
Recent news debates notwithstanding, is it not logical at this point to integrate the two more holistically? Providing incentives and even initial capitalization could help patients with both chronic and mental conditions receive comprehensive care.
More Telemedicine, Please
Telemedicine is not just a sort of pre-screening, a rehearsal for the real thing if you will. We should start treating telemed-related technologies as an expansion of care, where patients in rural areas can receive the attention they need for more simple diagnoses.
Not to mention, it’s a time and money saver.
Greater Accountability
Accountability shouldn’t just be reserved for physicians. Like in business, every participant in a given partnership is accountable for his or her action.
Think about that from the healthcare perspective: individuals should be held more accountable for their own health, healthcare providers should be held accountable for the services they provide and insurers are responsible for demonstrating transparency in their transactions.
Is this reasonable or are we asking for Utopia?
Any other wishes? Feel free to leave them in the comments and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to get next week’s 52 most important healthcare facts of 2012!
