Healthy Food

CMS’s Journey To Value-Based Care

Most people think of CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) as an insurance company that covers individual services provided by physicians, FQHCs, hospitals, and other health care providers. Some people even think of it as a policy-writing agency for Medicare. It is true that CMS reimburses providers for services to millions of individual beneficiaries. However, since the Affordable Care Act came into action in 2010, CMS has been developing focused payment strategies that shift from fees for services to value-based care and a focus on population health. Today, CMS’s second-highest strategic priority is prevention and population health. To this…

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Technology companies are proving to be the great equalizer

[Part 1 of a 12-Part Series] Healthcare is rife with significant challenges that can in some cases be minimized at the very minimum and in most cases be eliminated by the use of technology. The 12-part series begins by elaborating on macro-level challenges that the healthcare industry is starting to address with technology to stem the bleeding/reverse the onset of more severe complications. Challenge 1: Supply and demand Healthcare service delivery provisioning across the globe is starkly marked by the lack of adequate supply of qualified clinicians and specialists. This situation has been significantly exacerbated in the post pandemic new…

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Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS)

HEDIS is a set of performance measures that are used to compare health plan performance and measure the quality of health plans. These measures were created by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). About 90% of health plans use HEDIS as a standard to measure the performance of their plan. The data is tracked from year to year to measure the performance of the health plan and thus provide information regarding the population served. The data that is collected is used to monitor the health of the general population, evaluate treatment outcomes, etc., and the data is collected through…