The Pulse is the bi-weekly e-newsletter from The Physician Alliance, one of Michigan's largest physician organizations serving more than 2,200 primary care and specialty physicians.
The Pulse of The Physician Alliance
Friday, March 17, 2017
Improve patient care with HEDIS measures

The Physician Alliance continues to develop and update tip sheets to help practices improve HEDIS measures, billing and coding, and patient care.

Examples of new and updated tip sheets include provider tips for improving:
  • HPV screenings
  • diabetic eye exam screenings
  • pediatric HEDIS measures
  • adult HEDIS measures
  • condition specific adult HEDIS measures
All HEDIS tip sheets (and others) can be found on TPA's website under the Learning Center or Incentive Programs tabs.  
Make sure your patients correctly identify you

Ensuring that timely and correct medical information is provided to you about patients is vital to improving patient care so it's important that your patients share correct contact information along the care continuum. The Physician Alliance's My Doctors mobile app lets patients store their doctors' phone numbers, addresses and more in one secure location on their smartphone or tablet.

The My Doctors app lets users choose from more than 2,200 TPA physicians or manually add doctors. Users can also identify their primary care physician, add a primary pharmacy and create tabs for different family members.

Encourage your patients to download the My Doctors app to ensure your correct information is shared with other providers, at urgent care, the emergency department, diagnostic testing centers and elsewhere.

The app is available for Apple and Android devices. Search "My doctors by TPA" key words.  
What does patient-centered care mean to you?

Patient engagement is integral to successful healthcare. Join MPRO on Tuesday, April 4 from 9:30-11:30am for a special workshop on patient-centered care and what it means to your practice. The workshop will provide strategies and examples to help you better connect with your patients to encourage a healthier provider-patient relationship.
 
Participants will learn how to develop skills to better engage with patients in the healthcare setting, e mpower patients to engage in their healthcare through provider-led discussion and u nderstand the patient perspective. There is no cost for this workshop, but limited spots are available. You MUST register directly with MPRO.  
Preventing a breach with technology

Breaches continue to attack healthcare organizations and hackers continue to gain skills and improve malware. How can healthcare practices protect themselves against breaches using technology?
  1. Allocate your resources accordingly. Make sure to have a sufficient security budget for technology, risk assessments, monitoring, spam filters, and antivirus software. Have adequate protections against malware and make sure that systems are updated regularly.
  2. Segment your networks, if possible. If your networks are segmented into micro-perimeters, hackers will not be able to gain access to all data even if they get past the initial perimeter.
  3. Encrypt all protected health information. Encryption is your primary protection against breaches. It should be used all the time when transmitting healthcare data. Encryption goes a long way in reducing costs and fines and keeping patients' good will.
  4. Keep your inventory up to date. Make sure to know where all of your practice's devices are, including cell phones, USBs, and laptops. Don't allow access to your networks on outside devices.
Technology is extremely important in fighting against a breach, but don't forget to take other precautions against breaches as well.

Make sure to have up to date policies and procedures and ensure that your staff is thoroughly trained. Your staff is your first defense against a discovered breach. They should act quickly and without hesitation.

Source: Rickard & Associates, an affiliate in TPA's Physician Discount program, provides legal services, compliance assistance, employee/practice issues assistance and more to TPA practices.
Ambs Call Center offers high-quality medical answering services, appointment reminders, online message service and more. TPA members receive the first month free, plus discounted services.

  Learn more about these services.
The Physician Alliance | 20952 Twelve Mile, Suite 130, St. Clair Shores MI 48081 | 586-498-3555
thephysicianalliance@thephysicianalliance.org | www.thephysicianalliance.org