ACR post (30-Oct-2015) is here.
Highlight…
…CMS states that they anticipate including further discussion and adopting policies regarding claims-based reporting requirements in the CY 2017 and CY 2018 rulemaking cycles. Therefore, they do not intend to require that ordering professionals meet this requirement by January 1, 2017
At 3 pm ET on March 20, 2015, CMS released the Meaningful Use Stage 3 proposed rule to “specify the meaningful use criteria that eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) incentive payments and avoid downward payment adjustments under Medicare for Stage 3 of the EHR Incentive Programs.”
Here is a useful overview of MU Stage 3 (not just about imaging). And here is another MU Stage 3 overview. And here is an infographic.
A quick search for any mention of “imaging” (there are no instances of the word “images” in the 301 page PDF document; I checked), and here are the main excerpts.
Page 78
In alignment with the HHS National Quality Strategy goals, providers are encouraged to implement CDS related to quality measurement and improvement goals on the following areas:
…
Appropriateness of diagnostic orders or procedures such as labs, diagnostic imaging, genetic testing, pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic test result support or other diagnostic testing.
Page 81
Objective 4: Computerized Provider Order Entry
…
Proposed Objective: Use computerized provider order entry (CPOE) for medication, laboratory, and diagnostic imaging orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional, credentialed medical assistant, or a medical staff member credentialed to and performing the equivalent duties of a credentialed medical assistant; who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local, and professional guidelines.
Page 82
We propose to continue our policy from the Stage 2 final rule that the orders to be included in this objective are medication, laboratory, and radiology orders as such orders are commonly included in CPOE implementation and offer opportunity to maximize efficiencies for providers. However, for Stage 3, we are proposing to expand the objective to include diagnostic imaging, which is a broader category including other imaging tests such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance, and computed tomography in addition to traditional radiology. This change addresses the needs of specialists and allows for a wider variety of clinical orders relevant to particular specialists to be included for purposes of measurement.
Page 85
We also propose to maintain for Stage 3 the Stage 2 description of “radiologic services” as any imaging service that uses electronic product radiation (77 FR 53986). Even though we are proposing to expand the CPOE objective from radiology orders to all diagnostic imaging orders, this description would still apply for radiology services within the expanded objective.
…
Proposed Measures: An EP, eligible hospital or CAH must meet all three measures.
Proposed Measure 1: More than 80 percent of medication orders created by the EP or authorized providers of the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) during the EHR reporting period are recorded using computerized provider order entry;
Proposed Measure 2: More than 60 percent of laboratory orders created by the EP or authorized providers of the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) during the EHR reporting period are recorded using computerized provider order entry; and
Proposed Measure 3: More than 60 percent of diagnostic imaging orders created by the EP or authorized providers of the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) during the EHR reporting period are recorded using computerized provider order entry.
Page 86
Based on our review of attestation data from Stages 1 and 2 demonstrating provider performance on the CPOE measures, we propose to increase the threshold for medication orders to 80 percent and to increase the threshold for diagnostic imaging orders and laboratory orders to 60 percent. Median performance for Stage 1 on medication orders is 95 percent for EPs and 93 percent for eligible hospitals and CAHs. Stage 2 median performance on laboratory and radiology orders is 80 percent and 83 percent for eligible hospitals and CAHs and 100 percent for EPs for both measures. We believe it is reasonable to expect the actual use of CPOE for medication orders to increase from 60 percent in Stage 2 to 80 percent in Stage 3 and the actual use of CPOE for diagnostic imaging and laboratory orders to increase from 30 percent in Stage 2 to 60 percent in Stage 3. We note that despite the expansion of the category for radiology orders to diagnostic imaging orders, we do not anticipate a negative impact on the ability of providers to meet the higher threshold as the adoption of the expanded functionality does not require additional workflow implementation and allows for inclusion of a wider range of orders already being captured by many providers. Therefore, for medication orders we propose the threshold at 80 percent and for diagnostic imaging and laboratory orders we propose the threshold at 60 percent for Stage 3.
Page 88
Proposed Measure 3
To calculate the percentage, CMS and ONC have worked together to define the following for this measure :
Denominator: Number of diagnostic imaging orders created by the EP or authorized providers in the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) during the EHR reporting period.
Numerator: The number of orders in the denominator recorded using CPOE.
Threshold: The resulting percentage must be more than 60 percent in order for an EP, eligible hospital, or CAH to meet this measure.
Exclusion: Any EP who writes fewer than 100 diagnostic imaging orders during the EHR reporting period.
Page 221
A table lists the estimated time burden to attest for the CPOE rule (Measure 3 for Imaging), as 10 minutes for an EP and also 10 minutes for a hospital.
Following my post on consumer choice in imaging services, in which I asked how do we use quality—and not just cost—to help consumers make choices, I found some observations in this article on the shift of imaging being done in imaging centers to outpatient facilities to be quite interesting.
For example…
“groups at imaging centers may struggle to upgrade or get new equipment, which could affect image quality and interpretation”
So, how do I, as an imaging consumer know which provider has modern, safe, calibrated equipment, operated by qualified and skilled operators when making my choice of where to get imaging done?
I don’t ask my dry cleaner about what equipment they use, or when it was last serviced, or how much experience the person in the back doing the work has. Nor to I ask these questions about my car wash.
I often make choices in dry cleaning and cash washing based on cost, but more so convenience.
But this is my health and it is my body going through that device, not my clothes or my car.
I wonder how many people will simply trust that a friendly receptionist, flowers and nice magazines in the waiting room at a facility near where I work means quality and safe imaging. If I have a good experience during my imaging appointment, but they miss important findings due to low quality images (or lack of sub-specialty knowledge/training), how will I know?
Unlike a spot that doesn’t come out of my shirt or a still dirty section of my car, the consequences can be severe.
I have been very interested in the changes to how Radiology revenues will be affected during the shift from volume to value based reimbursement, along with changes to healthcare business models in general. I blogged about it here.
I have also been interested in how Radiology will have to change their behaviors in this new environment of transparency and empowered consumers. I blogged about that here.
In this article, a healthcare investment firm details how insurers will have to change in order to compete for mind share among consumers (with choice).
Another very interesting point they make is about wearables. I agree that they are only used by so called Innovators (from the Innovation Adoption Lifecycle model) today.
But what if insurance companies start offering incentives in the form of reduced policy premiums for people that use them (and share the data with the insurer perhaps). This is much like having a security system on your home lowers the cost of your theft insurance, or smoke detectors lowers your fire insurance premiums. This would create a boom in the mHealth sector, and would likely improve outcomes through early detection and correcting unhealthy behaviors.
I wonder: Will providers and insurers compete for who knows the patient best?
Providers have the EMR data (for encounters with their facility), and perhaps from an HIE (if they are part of one). Insurers have info from payment transactions spanning hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and others.
Where will the data from wearables go? If the insurers are buying (by lowering premiums), I will bet that they get it more often that the provider.
Will wearables and mHealth device vendors be savvy enough to provide it to both? Will consumer-controlled PHR vendors (or information aggregation and brokering tools) have an optimized method for getting data from all a patient’s devices and apps into EMR systems? Will the provider’s EMR or HIE be open enough to receive and store the wearable’s data without manual data entry (or copy-paste)?
Will patient’s be willing to share this personal info with providers and insurers? I will bet: yes.
If I thought the data would help my outcome, and I trusted my provider, I would share it.
If it was certain to lower my premiums, I would share the info with my insurer. If the insurer reserved the right to increase premiums based on info that my wearable provided (i.e. if I sit on the couch too long, my payment goes up), I might reconsider.
Will providers supply no cost (or subsidized) wearable and mHealth devices (or apps) to patients? Will insurers and providers share this cost?
So, how can wearables help in Radiology? Other than sending out reminders on where and when to show up for the exam, and what to do (e.g. eating, etc.) prior to the procedure.
There is a lot written these days about the shift from volume-based to value-based in Radiology (and other medical specialties).
The thing is: volume is real easy to measure. And what gets measured, gets managed.
So, how do we measure value?
One can measure the time it takes to complete the report, sign it, and make it available to physicians and other members of the care team. Radiology practitioners call this Turnaround Time (or TAT). This is pretty easy to do.
We could try to measure whether the report is correct. In other words, is what the Radiologist concludes actually what is wrong (or not wrong) with the patient? This can be harder to measure, as it may take a lot of work to correlate many different data points, or a lengthy period of time for proof to be found.
There are a couple of activities that Radiologists, and other people working in the department, can do to improve the perceived value of Radiology.
In this article, a number of suggestions are made as to how to increase the visibility of Radiologists, as well as improve relationships and trust among other physicians and even patients.
And this WSJ article focuses on simply improving the clarity of the report by improving the language and writing skills of Radiologist. Seems obvious as to the value this would provide, when you read it, but how many Radiologists routinely attend training on how to communicate better?
While improving how Radiologists interact with the outside world—whether through better interactions or better writing—will help the Radiologist’s career, one would hope that it would also improve care. Better communication certainly couldn’t hurt.
I really enjoyed this article. It gets into the specifics of what we could mean by quality of Radiology reading.
I think it gets to the crux of the problem in any domain when quality is desired—a trade off is necessary. It may be cost, or it may be the experience of the user, but it will be somewhere.
Let’s use a similar evaluation in software development.
Coders that are fast are lauded as innovative and bright and creative, until their barely-tested and unscalable application fails in operations, or a security hole results in a data breach. These folks are often called “hackers” (but generally in a positive way).
The more thorough developer is criticized for taking too long and keeping the application in the lab (instead of the “real world”) for too long. They spend significantly more time in the design and testing and documentation areas, so to outsiders, they are slow. Their products take more time (missing some early opportunities seized by hackers), but the applications are much more reliable and supportable in operations. They are professional software developers.
As someone that has managed R&D teams before, you always want both behaviors (and results), but as the article posits, you often cannot have both. You certainly shouldn’t expect to get both.
I often say: Decisions are easy (I decide I want innovation and reliability, and I want it fast), but Choices are hard. I value people that can make choices, and live with them, much more than so called “decision makers”.
I have been reading a lot recently about trends in healthcare and imaging around costs and revenues. There seems to be a perfect storm of changes in the market that will have a fundamental impact on diagnostic imaging service providers. I find this topic interesting because, unless you understand how the money is moving, you won’t understand why things are happening. Here is a summary of what I have discovered.
This one is obvious. If you lower the amount of money paid for something, your revenues will go down (unless volume goes up proportionally). Here is an infographic from MITA on the cuts made since 2006.
Here is an article from MITA on the decline of the total number of CT exams being done in the U.S. Here is another one citing data published by the American College of Radiology (ACR). It states: “…physicians are calling for less, not more, imaging tests.” This shows a measurable reduction in the volume of exams performed in the U.S. And here is an article indicating a steady decrease in imaging studies being ordered for patients in the ED, following a steady increase up to 2007.
The sharing of patients’ clinical records across facilities is a key part of Accountable Care, and is generally a good thing for patient care. So is sharing imaging records. With reliable options now available on the market, sites within a local referral area are rapidly launching or signing up to services to share images. The clinical benefits of comparing new imaging exams with priors are well understood, but this practice will often result in avoiding the need to perform a repeat exam. This benefits the patient (less radiation and anxiety and delay), and the operations of the receiving organization (less schedule disruption, less costs due to CD importation). The other impact, of course, is that the receiving organization loses some revenue from that avoided repeat exam. This will result in a reduction in volume of exams performed.
Starting on January 1, 2017, imaging exams will require the use of Clinical Decision Support (CDS) to ensure that physicians are following Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC). In addition to clinical evidence, factors such as relative radiation level and cost of the exam are used to determine what is appropriate. All things being equal, the lower cost exam is likely to be recommended. The adoption of CDS may result in a reduction in volume of exams performed, or a recommendation to a lower cost (profit) exam.
In some insurance plans, preauthorization is required before certain exam types can be ordered (even when CDS is used, in some cases). This may require a consultation with a radiologist or Radiology Benefits Management (RBM) company. Here is an article from 2011 on the use of preauthorization and CDS. The larger the burden on the ordering physician, the less likely they are to order the exam, which may result in a reduction in volume of exams performed, or a recommendation to a lower cost (profit) exam.
Last year, I did a blog post on an article on the trend of “patient steerage”. The original article is here. Essentially, patient steerage is when a payer incents a patient to use a provider that offers the imaging service at a lower cost. If a service provider is not price competitive, this will result in a reduction in volume of exams performed.
This company received a lot of attention because of the size of its IPO, but it is also notable for what they actually do. As this article explains, they provide healthcare provider cost information for a range of healthcare services to employee health plans. The intent being that, given the choice, consumers will choose lower cost options. This is very likely to happen when the patient has a significant co-pay (e.g. 20%) and they will personally benefit from lower cost options. If a service provider is not price competitive, this will result in a reduction in volume of exams performed.
With all the talk about the shift of reimbursement from volume of procedures to quality or outcomes, I found this tweet on Castlight interesting… 
If we shift away from volume incentives/payment, reduce the prices paid (through policy or competition), but don’t recognize quality, the service of diagnostic imaging has been commoditized, and I don’t think that this will benefit patients, in the end.
I have heard a couple of opinions that believe that the strong trend of consolidation among healthcare providers will allow the largest of providers to dictate terms and pricing to payers. As it was explained to me, it works like this: The big, well-known healthcare provider, which has bought up many of the facilities in the area, tells the insurance payers, ‘If you don’t give me preferential pricing for my services, I won’t accept your insurance plan at my facilities’. If the healthcare provider is big enough and well respected, the insurance provider will have a tough time selling insurance plans to companies and individuals when the buyer learns that they can’t go to the big provider. This is called leverage. If this is true (and I think that it is), this will result in isolated areas of reimbursement stabilization or even increases. Here is an article talking about what the impact of provider consolidation means to private payers. It cites a steady increase in the number of physicians becoming employees of hospitals (vs. independent private practices)…
“…the number of doctors employed by hospitals increased to over 120,000 from 80,000 between 2003 and 2011. About 13 percent of all doctors are now employed directly by hospitals.”
Here is an article on the need for an overhaul of Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) systems in the U.S. It includes some stats on administration costs per transaction (compared to financial services transactions) and consolidation trends, as well as the value of analytics. Some excerpts…
“…the number of hospitals per integrated delivery system took a big jump last year from 6.4 to 7.1…”
“…the physicians who go into practice do not want to be entrepreneurs as much as they used to. When 52 or 53 percent of residents today become employees of integrated delivery systems, it tells you that the whole market has changed.”
Here is an article on using analytics and their reports to optimize financial operations.
So, what do you think?
P.S. Here is an interview that goes into the details of payer vs. provider, along with a case for more bundled payments. And here is a blog post that goes into more detail on bundled payments, including the shift from retrospective to prospective bundles.
P.P.S. Here is an article explaining the difference between charges and costs.
P.P.P.S. Here is a notice of rule changes proposed by CMS on the method by how physicians fees will be determined. “…we are updating our practice expense inputs for x-ray services to reflect that x-rays are currently done digitally rather than with analog film.”
P.P.P.P.S. Here is an article on a study on the disparity of costs for a Mammogram in the L.A. area. $60 to $254 for self-pay, with a bill of $694 to the insurance company for the same procedure elsewhere. 30% of Mammograms in the study were self-pay.
P.P.P.P.P.S Here is an article, with a nice infographic, on 5 common medical practice denials and remedies. Spoiler alert: Radiology made the Top 5 list of unexpected denials.
P.P.P.P.P.P.S Here is an infographic on the declining employment demand and income of Radiologists by a medical recruitment firm.
Check out this article in Radiology Business Journal on the recently concluded Hackathon at the SIIM 2014 Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California.
Here are my other observations on SIIM 2014, in case you missed it.
Another SIIM Annual Meeting is in the books. As usual, it was a great event with tons of great information, discussions and networking.
Some observations…
That’s it for now. Already looking forward to SIIM 2015 in Washington D.C.
About to board a jetplane to the SIIM 2014 Annual Meeting in Long Beach California. Very much looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues, as well as learning lots and recharging with some great new ideas. A lot has changed in our industry since last year, so it will be an exciting meeting.
And I hope to get some sun while I am there. 🙂
Don K Dennison 