Literature Review

[Home Health] Agencies score high on professionalism, lower on patients’ likelihood to recommend to others: CAHPS reportMcKnight's Home Care, by Adam Healy; 1/30/24Home health agencies across the U.S. were graded highly on their professionalism, but many patients have indicated they might not be likely to recommend their services to others, according to the Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems program’s most recent report. A total of 998,092 HHCAHPS surveys spanning more than 7,000 agencies were completed between July 2022 and June 2023, according to the report released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Staying Competitive With Consumerism in HealthcareMedCity News, by Mike Szczesny; 2/2/24Adapting to healthcare consumerism is vital for providers to stay competitive. Shifting from traditional roles to informed consumers requires embracing transparency, technology, and personalized care.

How PBM legislation would transform the industryModern Healthcare, by Lauren Berryman; 1/24/24The pharmacy benefit manager industry could look a lot different soon if Congress follows through with bipartisan efforts to pass bills governing the sector. PBMs such as CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx would face new transparency requirements that would give health insurance companies, employers, customers and regulators new insights into how they negotiate prices for prescription medicines—and how much of the savings they generate find their way to patients and plan sponsors. Pending legislation also would prohibit lucrative practices such as spread pricing.

CVS Health, academic medical center form ACOModern Healthcare, by Lauren Berryman; 1/25/24CVS Health and the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center are partnering on an accountable care organization, they announced Thursday.

Former Trump health official to oversee Oracle HealthModern Healthcare, by Brock E. W. Turner; 2/1/24Seema Verma, former administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is expanding her role at tech giant Oracle. Verma, who was CMS administrator under President Donald Trump, will serve as executive and general manager of Oracle Health.

Joint inpatient palliative care approaches may reduce length of stay in intensive care unitsPhysician's Weekly; 2/7/24Patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) would benefit from having an Inpatient Palliative Care (IPC) team to help them through this difficult chapter in their lives. An IPC team usually help patients manage their symptoms and pain along with providing support to them and their families and assisting with communication to ensure realistic expectations.

Transforming value-based dementia care—Implications for the GUIDE ModelJAMA Intern. Med; by Tarun Ramesh; Kushal Kadakia, MS; Lidia Moura, MD, MPH, PhD; 2/5/24Dementia disproportionately affects older adults and represents an increasingly difficult population health and financial challenge for Medicare. Annual spending for Medicare beneficiaries with dementia is approximately 3 times higher than that for patients without dementia, with excess costs attributable to substantial fragmentation across the care journey. Patients with dementia experience polypharmacy and frequent hospitalizations and require careful coordination across multiple specialty health care professionals with support from unpaid caregivers. However, traditional fee-for-service (FFS) payment models may not adequately support costly medical and social needs for patients with dementia and their unpaid caregivers.Editor's Note: Full access requires subscription or other online library access to JAMA.

Cigna to sell Medicare business to HCSC for $3.3BBecker's Payer Issues, by Rylee Wilson; 1/31/24The Cigna Group reached a deal to sell its Medicare business to Health Care Service Corp. for $3.3 billion. According to a Jan. 31 news release from Cigna, the sale includes Cigna's Medicare Advantage, supplemental benefits, Medicare Part D offerings, and CareAllies, a value-based care management subsidiary.

Patient-centered focus is key to reducing hospitalizations, value-based success, experts sayMcKnights Home Care, by Adam Healy; 2/6/24To keep hospitalization rates low — and thereby produce better results within the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) model — providers need a good understanding of patients’ goals to tailor care to meet their unique wants and needs. ... Keeping these goals at the forefront of care can reduce their chances of being hospitalized, according to Cindy Campbell, senior director of advisory services at healthcare technology firm WellSky. But defining patients’ goals is not just a recommendation, she noted: It’s mandated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Predicting private equity’s involvement in home health care in 2024Home Health Care News, by Patrick Filbin; 2/2/24Health care’s share of global private-equity (PE) deal count peaked at 13.7% in 2020. Three years later, that number fell to 10.8% — its lowest level since 2015. Compared to the bustling activity of 2021, home-based care dealmaking was mostly sluggish in 2023 and has followed that same trend.

The first 8 hospitals to attain Joint Commission's equity certificationBecker's Clinical Leadership, by Ashleigh Hollowell; 2/2/24Eight hospitals have achieved The Joint Commission's new health equity certification, which the accrediting organization rolled out in July. Key components of the certification require hospitals to make "health care equity a strategic priority and are collaborating with patients, families, caregivers and external organizations to identify and address needs that help translate equitable health care into better health outcomes," Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, president and CEO of The Joint Commission Enterprise, said in a June 27 news release just days before the program launched.

Northern Light Health works to get back online after computer server breachMainebiz, by William Hall; 2/5/24Maine's second-largest health care system, Northern Light Health, said on Monday part of its computer network remained down after servers were discovered Saturday to have been breached. Nothern Light Health comprises 10 hospitals including 411-bed Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor; over 1,000 physicians; six home care and hospice centers; and a total of more than 120 care locations.

Hospice of the Plains annual hog roast draws big crowdNews Channel Nebraska, by Forrest Hershberger; 2/4/24Hospice of the Plains supporters took part in the 21st annual hog roast an auction hosted by the Sterling Elks Club February 3. The annual event is one of the major fundraisers for the organization, according to Tiffany Storch, CEO/Administrator of Hospice of the Plains.