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, September 15, 2017
Specialty practices earn Service Excellence Awards
Collaboration and communication between specialty and primary care practices are important to improving patient care coordination and quality. The Physician Alliance recognizes the value of this collaboration and the critical need for specialty physicians to implement and maintain specific Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) Patient Centered Medical Home - Neighborhood (PCMH-N) capabilities that support neighborhood development and quality improvement. To recognize the hard work of these practices, TPA developed two recognition awards for specialty practices:

Service Excellence Award in Care Coordination
Service Excellence Award for Quality Improvement 

Achieving the Service Excellence Awards is important because the awards:
  1. Provide a mechanism for specialty practices to be recognized among their peers and their patients.
  2. Help identify potential areas of improvement in care coordination and quality improvement.
  3. Help guide practices to be successful in a rapidly changing healthcare environment.
  4. Will assist primary care physicians to easily identify those specialty practices who are excellent in care coordination and quality improvement processes.
Congratulations to the specialty practices earning the Service Excellence Award in Care Coordination and Service Excellence Award in Quality Improvement!

For a complete list of practices earning 3-star rating or above in care coordination and quality improvement, visit TPA's website. Practice resource team members will soon be delivering framed certificates to recognize these achievements.

For more information on the Service Excellence Awards and how to earn an award, visit TPA's website.
Don't surrender 4% of your revenue to CMS
Is your practice collecting data for participation in CMS' Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)?  If you have not already started collecting data to report, your ability to collect 90 days of data for 2017 will expire October 2, 2017.
Ethica is offering MIPS Mastery Services to help your practice prepare for attestation in 2018 and achieve a bonus on Medicare collections.Would you like an assessment of your practice's IT readiness? Need help choosing quality metrics for submission? Would you like a better understanding of improvement activities and/or help preparing for 2017 and beyond? If yes, contact info@ethicaholdings.com to schedule a Readiness Evaluation.
The one-hour evaluation will answer your questions and help you decide if one of our service tier options or a customized practice-based support option is right for you. A Readiness Evaluation is only $200 (TPA members receive a $25 discount).  

*Ethica is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Physician Alliance.
ICD-10 code available for physical activity counseling

A new ICD-10 code will satisfy the metric for physical activity counseling. As of October 1, 2017 the code Z 71.82 will satisfy the metric for physical activity counseling. The tip sheet for pediatric HEDIS measures has been updated to reflect this new code.

Don't forget that there are many tip sheets available on The Physician Alliance's website to assist with HEDIS measures, including diabetic eye exam screening scores, childhood weight assessment and counseling, pediatric measures and more.
Webinar focuses on improving cancer screenings

Learn how client reminders can improve important cancer screenings during a special webinar hosted by MPRO on Friday, Sept. 29 from 12:30-1:30pm. The webinar will share how client reminder systems can support improvement in colorectal, breast, and cervical cancer screenings for primary care offices. Hear best practices from the field and learn about useful resources for engaging patients. Register today for this webinar.
Rickard & Associates provides an array of legal services that help a practice, including HIPAA readiness, healthcare business transactions, compliance, audits, contract negotiation, employee contracts and more.

  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