Updates from your ACE team
Expand your practice to achieve financial independence
Now that we're officially halfway through the year, this is the perfect time to measure the success of your expansion strategies and check that you're on track to meet your financial goals and patient targets.

Hopefully you've taken advantage of the low-hanging revenue opportunities we've discussed over the past few months like claiming retroactive reimbursement for self-pay balances, transitioning to a value-based care model and implementing quality measures. Not sure where to start? Contact us today - we can help you develop ongoing programs to maximize your revenue.

This month, let's talk about the steps you can take to expand your practice. We'll also take a look at what's been happening in the industry, including new HIPAA FAQs released by the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR), upcoming National Health Center Week, several new tools and resources available to health centers, and an interesting article outlining the history of national health care programs. CMS has also been b usy, focusing on programs to reduce provider administrative burden, and a FY 2020 ICD-10-CM diagnosis code update.

Keep reading for more details.
Upcoming July events: come meet our team!

In July we'll be attending conferences in FL and MS - we'd love to see you! Stop by our booth, hear about our latest campaigns, and find out how we can help you expand your practice. Details below:

July 21-24: 2019 FACHC Annual Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida [Booth #207]

July 30 - August 2: 2019 CHCAMS Annual Conference in Biloxi, MS
Practice expansion... what does that mean?

You've heard us use this term a lot over the past few months, and it's where we add the most value for our clients. We understand the unique challenges FQHCs face in achieving increased patient targets, tighter compliance requirements, and greater competition.

We look for innovative ways to help you expand your patient base and create new revenue streams with minimal resource requirement or disruption to operations . How?

1) We analyze referral patterns, patient data, and local trends to identify economies of scale and any gaps in service mix.

2) We bring together like-minded practices and align specialties like Infectious Disease or sub-specialties like Endocrinology or Pulmonary that have the greatest potential for helping patients. 

3) We support the practice and specialty expansion with a full range of services across multiple business functions including:
  • Pharmacy and specialty pharmacy: These increase your revenue and enable you to offer more services to your patients.
  • Revenue cycle management and credentialing services: Our experienced staff provide billing services for all aspects of FQHC billing and coding, and we have an excellent track record of cleaning up AR challenges and maximizing reimbursements.
  • Behavioral Health: We are experts in Behavioral Health, creating out-patient optimization, and helping understand in-patients like SNF services.
Media watch and other useful info
National healthcare... then and now

With ongoing debate about national and community healthcare, it's interesting to see how the discussion has changed over time. CMS has detailed some of the history on its website, and created a fun quiz highlighting some of the challenges faced over the years. More in this article .
New HIPAA FAQs

On June 26, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued two new   FAQs  that clarify how protected health information (PHI) can be used and disclose by covered entities. This article provides a helpful summary.
CMS UPDATES

Reducing provider burden to improve care
In a speech earlier this month at the American Medical Association Annual Meeting of the House of Delegates, Administrator Seema Verma talked about focusing on three government programs that have created major pain points for doctors: MACRA, E&M codes, and interoperability. Read the full speech outlining how CMS proposes to tackle these areas.

As part of its Patients over Paperwork program, CMS recently proposed a new rule to update e-prescribing standards to reduce provider burden and expedite access to needed medications. The rule would improve patients’ access to needed medications by updating the prior authorization process for Medicare Part D. Read about it here.

Coding updates
The FY 2020 ICD-10-CM diagnosis code updates are now available on the  2020 ICD-10-CM  webpage.

Latest Podcast now available
The latest CMS: Beyond the Policy Podcast is available. This edition focuses on the CMS Innovation Center which acts as a developer and testing ground for innovative payment and service delivery models to improve quality of care for Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP beneficiaries and to save taxpayer money.
National Health Center Week: August 4-10

National Health Center Week is an annual celebration with the goal of raising awareness about the mission and accomplishments of America’s health centers over the past five decades.

Last year's theme focused on America's Health Care Heroes (that's you!) and this year, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) and the Health Center Advocacy Network invites you to celebrate the ways that health centers are “Rooted in Communities.”

The  website has a wealth of information about the initiative, focus days, planned media coverage, local events and happenings, and also provides useful tools such as templates, social media images and content.

Are you planning any special events to show off your center to the community? Let NHCW promote it for you... submit event details here .
New risk management tools available
 
ECRI Institute  and HRSA have a cooperative agreement in place to support the work of health centers. You can set up a free account with ECRI, giving you access to a wide variety of useful resources including their  Risk Management Toolkit , which also contains checklists, sample policies and other practical risk management and patient safety materials.

Stay up to date with HRSA's latest news.
NACHC launches new Medicaid Resources

NACHC has just announced several new and updated Medicaid-related resources for Community Health Centers and Primary Care Associations including checklists, tools, and issue briefs. Find out more on the NACHC website .

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