Becker's ASC Review

105 ASC Quality & Accreditation 11 Trendy Apps for ASC Physicians By Mary Rechtoris Here are 11 apps for ASC physicians: 1. TouchCare — e app enables physicians and patients to correspond in face-to-face video appointments that comply with HIPAA regulations. Physicians are able to view a patient's condition and discern whether that patient needs to come in if necessary. 2. Figure 1 — is new app, likened to Instagram or Facebook, allows physicians to upload photos, X-rays and other images of patients' mala- dies. Figure 1 gives healthcare providers instant access to unusual cases around the world and presently has users in more than 100 countries. 3. Surgical Notes — e app aims to reduce the time for claim submission by allowing physicians to complete dictation and operative reports. In ad- dition to dictation, physicians can electronically sign and approve reports almost instantaneously. 4. HSTpathways — HSTpathways, a leader in ASC surgery soware and outpatient information systems, devised a cloud-based surgery center management soware application for surgical scheduling, clinical work- flow, inventory management, medical coding as well as insurance and pa- tient billing. e app also features account receivable collections. 5. Epocrates — e app is used by more than 500,000 U.S. physicians to look up drug information and communicate with other physicians for con- sultations and referrals. e app allows users to calculate patient measures like BMI. e majority of the app's content is free, with additional informa- tion and functionality requiring an in-app purchase of Epocrates Essentials. 6. Draw MD — Users can draw out surgical procedures to show patients. e app includes drawings for various specialties including orthopedics, pediatrics, thoracic surgery and countless others. 7. CliniCam — e app allows physicians to take pictures of a patient's condition and upload the image to the patient's electronic medical record. e app stays HIPAA compliant by directly sending photos to the patient's EMR without storing them on the physician's phone. 8. Resolution MD — e app allows physicians to securely view patient images and reports. e app uses diagnostic medical imaging soware to provide image access across multiple types of mobile devices. 9. Leading Reach — e app allows medical professionals to deliver pre- appointment information to patients. Additionally, the app automatically notifies the referred-to physician and creates a record of that referral in one step. Leading Reach also features email appointment reminders and driving directions. e referral process is made simple to allow physicians to spend more time with patients. 10. Mednet — e app allows physicians to view reports and schedules. e app features a purchasing tool enabling users to create, edit, approve, gener- ate, acknowledge and receive material orders to and directly from vendors through EDI or emails. Additionally, the app allows clinical staff to enter their start and end time for pre-op, intra-op, post-op and anesthesia. 11. Muscle Trigger Point — e app serves as an anatomy reference for the most common trigger points and referral patterns for more than 70 muscles. e app contains more than 100 trigger points with their cor- responding referral pattern in addition to the visual referral pattern for every muscle. n CMS Penalizes 2.5k Hospitals for High Readmissions: 10 Things to Know By Heather Punke I n the fourth year of the Hospital Readmis- sions Reduction Program, 2,592 hospitals will face penalties to their Medicare reimburse- ments for a high number of 30-day readmissions. Here are 10 things to know about the fines and the program. 1. e Hospital Readmissions Reduction Pro- gram was created under the Affordable Care Act, which required CMS to reduce payments to hos- pitals with excess readmissions. 2. is year's penalties are based on readmis- sions occurring between July 2011 and June 2014 for Medicare patients who were originally in the hospital for one of the following conditions: heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, chronic obstruc- tive pulmonary disease or elective hip and knee replacements. 3. ere are 18 fewer hospitals penalized this year than last year (2,592 compared with 2,610, which was a record-high number of penalized hospitals). All but 209 hospitals punished this year were also punished last year, according to Kaiser Health News. 4. e penalties will take effect from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2016, and are projected to cost the hospitals a combined $420 million. 5. To determine the level of penalty levied against each hospital, CMS uses a formula to determine what the appropriate number of unplanned 30-day readmissions would be for each hospital. The formula involves the hospi- tal's patient mix and how the nation's hospitals performed overall. The penalty is based on the difference between the projected rate of un- planned readmissions and the actual rate, ac- cording to KHN. 6. e maximum penalty this year is a 3 percent reduction in Medicare payments, which 38 hospi- tals will receive this year compared to 39 hospitals last year. e average penalty this year is 0.61 per- cent, KHN reported. 7. Four hospitals have received the maximum penalty each year under the program, according to KHN: Two in Kentucky, one in Louisiana and another in Tennessee. 8. A total of 506 hospitals will have Medicare re- imbursements docked by 1 percent or more. 9. Not all hospitals are subject to the program. For instance, hospitals in Maryland cannot be pe- nalized, because the state has a special payment arrangement with Medicare, according to KHN. Additionally, critical access hospitals and hospi- tals that specialize in certain types of patients, like children or veterans, are exempt. 10. e Readmissions Reduction Program is not without its fair share of controversy. Some organi- zations and experts have argued that the program is flawed. For instance, the Altarum Institute's Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness not- ed that hospitals that reduce both readmissions and discharges are being penalized under the program. e National Quality Forum is look- ing into whether patient socioeconomic factors should be part of readmission measurement, ac- cording to KHN, and hospitals are lobbying CMS and Congress to include socioeconomic factors as well. n

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