Knowledge is power, the saying goes, and access to more information about the quality of care that we provide to patients will help improve the way we deliver healthcare in this country. To that end, the U.S. government established the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. The PQRS was designed to help eligible providers provide a higher standard of care to each patient they treat, as well as to quantify their ability to meet various quality metrics.

What Is EHR Software? You’ve either recently installed Electronic Health Record software at your thriving practice, or you are about to deploy an EHR for the first time. While you may be familiar with the basics of how EHR applications function, there may some features that you are unaware of or are not currently taking advantage of.

Quality in healthcare over quantity of healthcare delivered is the new focus in these United States. In an effort to boost quality, the government is encouraging health care providers to start using Alternative Payment Models (also known as APMs), as part of a broader effort to curb costs and improve efficiency.

You went into the field of medicine to help others. Today, that help involves a number of elements designed to ensure that providers, technology, and delivery methods are operating tightly to produce better results with less expenditure, especially as it applies to Medicare patients since the government is involved with that.

You’ve probably seen first-hand or have heard from your colleagues how patients who don't receive adequate levels of after care services can often wind up relapsing and/or need to be readmitted.

What enables doctors and nurses to “see” patients without the patient needing to come into the office or the medical professional having to make a house call? The answer is telemedicine.

In modern healthcare, more attention is being paid lately to the level of quality we provide to our patients, rather than emphasizing how much (the quantity) care is being doled out to them. To that end, the U.S. government has lately been promoting Alternative Payment Models or APMs in support of the goals of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).

When you first entered the medical profession, patients typically were asked to make reimbursements for treatment under a fee-for-service system. That is a natural aspect of providing healthcare in a capitalist country like the United States, where the focus can sometimes be on profits rather than on achieving the highest standards of care.

Does your medical organization currently provide care for Medicare or Medicaid patients, or are you planning to begin offering service to them in the near future? You should know that the government has a keen interest in streamlining how we deliver healthcare in the United States, with an emphasis on quality over quantity. To that end, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (also known as CMS) launched its Medicare and Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Programs in 2011 to encourage eligible providers to demonstrate Meaningful Use.

In any business, it will typically take a lot more time, effort and other resources to attract new customers than it does to retain them. The same typically holds true in healthcare organizations. Better patient engagement fosters trust between patients and the professionals treating them and is key for maintaining continuity of care. There are also financial considerations to keep in mind, of course, that will motivate practices to do their best to engage with each patient to keep them happy and satisfied with the services they receive.