Business Intelligence

Providers utilize business intelligence to monitor referral patterns and collaborate with clinicians who order their services. Such analytics tools have also been deployed in the specialty to improve productivity, track patient satisfaction and bolster quality.

CMS pauses all new Medicaid hospice and home health provider entries for six months
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said it’s issuing a nationwide moratorium on new providers entering the spaces until it has a chance to look into allegations of fraud, waste and abuse. It confirmed investigations of various organizations are pending.
Consolidation of physician practices proceeds apace, corporatizing medicine one acquisition at a time
The days when most doctors worked in independent practice settings are fading from memory like old photoprints in a dog-eared scrapbook.
Investor-bought PCPs carry on like nothing much has changed—with caveats
Private-equity acquisitions of primary-care provider practices neither alter hospitalization rates nor affect acute-care outcomes, according to new research out of Brown University.
12 of the top technology vendors serving children’s hospitals
Epic makes the list with its enterprise inpatient EHR and related platforms. So does PCC, aka Physician’s Computer Company, which supplies pediatric-specific ambulatory EHR and practice-management products and services.
Weight loss drugs are hiking employer healthcare prices, with 87% saying they expect costs to only go up
In a survey, employers told the Business Group on Health that they aren’t yet seeing evidence of long-term health benefits from taking GLP-1s for weight loss, leaving them unsure how to manage costs while continuing to cover them.

Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

AHA head: ‘Time to hold commercial health insurers accountable’

The problem of commercial health insurers standing between patients and providers is bad and only getting worse.

Hospital CEO turnover encouragingly low for third straight year: ACHE

U.S. hospital CEOs continue sticking with the job at the highest rate since 2010 and 2011.

AHA urges hospital stakeholders to wake up and smell the financial trouble that’s been brewing

The American Hospital Association is sounding the alarm over evidently widespread acceptance of 0% operating margins—or even negative margins—as a sort of “new normal” for U.S. hospitals and health systems.

U.S. News: Out with overall hospital rankings, in with alphabetically ordered ‘honor rolls’

U.S. News & World Report has posted its annual list of America’s best hospitals. But be warned. If you’re checking to see whether Mayo Clinic occupies the overall top spot for the eighth straight year, you’ll go down looking.

The 25 best U.S. cardiology hospitals ranked

U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of heart hospitals named Cleveland Clinic No. 1, once again, but there were many changes among the other top 25 hospitals.

artificial intelligence healthcare industry digest

Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

cybersecurity security AI and automation

Automated, AI-equipped security tools help hold the line on data breaches

When it comes to identifying and containing data breaches, organizations armed with security AI plus automation spend 108 days fewer than their differently prepared counterparts.

Business Intelligence

CMS pauses all new Medicaid hospice and home health provider entries for six months

Consolidation of physician practices proceeds apace, corporatizing medicine one acquisition at a time

Investor-bought PCPs carry on like nothing much has changed—with caveats

12 of the top technology vendors serving children’s hospitals

Weight loss drugs are hiking employer healthcare prices, with 87% saying they expect costs to only go up