Improving Hypertension _ Diabetes Control and Prevention
diabetes
CME Opportunity: Medication Adherence for Type 2 Diabetes
Comparison of Medication Adherence Among Patients in Type 2 Diabetes

Medication adherence is a critical part of successful clinical outcomes. Can adherence to one class of medications affect outcomes of an unrelated disease? A great collection of researchers assessed how adherence to antidepressants affected diabetes outcomes as well as healthcare costs in an article published in the October 2017 issue of Current Research and Medical Opinion. Click here to read the article.

Upon completion of the article, readers can receive 1.0 AMA PRA Category Creditâ„¢ by scoring at least a 75 percent on the post-test, which can be found beneath the article posting on the  Medscape website.
DIABETES CARE ARTICLES EXAMINES THE SKYROCKETING COSTS OF DIABETES

free image Periodic economic analyses performed by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) have shown an increase in the total direct costs of diabetes in the United States - from $116 billion in 2007 to $237 billion in 2017, and annual indirect costs related to lost productivity now total $90 billion. These staggering costs make diabetes the most expensive chronic condition in the United States, where one in four health care dollars spent is incurred by someone with diabetes, and care for a person with diabetes now costs an average of $16,752 per year.

Diabetes Care Editor-in-Chief Matthew C. Riddle, of Oregon Health & Science University, and William H. Herman, of the University of Michigan Schools of Medicine and Public Health, call these costs "an elephant in the room, impossible to miss but frequently ignored." Their commentary in the journal's May issue introduces a special collection of articles focused on this crucial issue. 
Patient Video Demonstrates Proper Techniques for Home Blood Pressure Monitoring

home bp video Monitoring blood pressure at home can play a key role in keeping hypertension in check.  Share this video, How to Check My Own Blood Pressure , with your patients to teach them the proper techniques for taking a blood pressure measurement at home. The video, developed by the Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign , also talks about the cost of home blood pressure monitors, where they can be purchased, features to look for in a monitor, and much more.
CDC GUIDE OUTLINES BEST PRACTICES FOR CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE PREVENTION PROGRAMS GUIDE

The  Best Practices Guide for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Programs describes and summarizes scientific evidence behind eight effective strategies for lowering high blood pressure and cholesterol levels that can be implemented in health care systems and that involve community-clinical links. 

The Guide highlights strategies that have been found to be effective for widespread control of hypertension and hyperlipidemia, but which are not yet being used widely as standard practice. 

This guide was developed to serve as a resource for state and local health departments, decision makers, public health professionals, and other stakeholders interested in using proven strategies to improve cardiovascular health.  Click here to download the Guide.
Effective Immediately: CMS Changes the Name of the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program

The Medical Assistance Electronic Health news icon Record (EHR) Incentive Program is now called the Promoting Interoperability Program.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is aligning and streamlining the Medical Assistance (MA) EHR Incentive Program to move the program beyond the existing requirements of meaningful use (MU) to a new phase of EHR measurement focused on interoperability and improving patient access to health information.  

To better reflect this focus, effective immediately CMS is renaming:
  • The EHR Incentive Programs to the Promoting Interoperability (PI) Program for eligible hospitals, critical access hospitals, and Medicaid providers
  • The MIPS Advancing Care Information performance category to the Promoting Interoperability Performance Category for MIPS eligible clinicians
Please note: This rebranding does not merge or combine the EHR Incentive Programs and MIPS. In the coming weeks, the PA MA EHR Incentive Program will be updating its websites and educational resources to reflect this change.  As always, we will keep you informed of any changes.  In the immediate future, you will begin to see the new name in correspondence (including subject lines in email messages).
Quality Payment Program Website Now Offers 2018 MIPS Clinician Eligibility at the Group Level

website icon You can now log in to the CMS Quality Payment Program (QPP) website to check your group's 2018 eligibility for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

After logging into the feature using your EIDM credentials, browse to the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) affiliated with your group, and you will be able to click into a details screen to see the eligibility status of every clinician based on their National Provider Identifier (NPI) and find out whether they need to participate during the 2018 performance year for MIPS.

Don't have an EIDM account? Start the process now! Refer to the  Enterprise Identity Management (EIDM) User Guide for instructions.

Reminder: Changes to Low-Volume Threshold
As a reminder, we changed the eligibility threshold for 2018. Clinicians and groups are now excluded from MIPS if they:
  • Billed $90,000 or less in Medicare Part B allowed charges for covered professional services under the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS)
OR
  • Furnished covered professional services under the PFS to 200 or fewer Medicare Part B -enrolled beneficiaries
This means that to be included in MIPS for the 2018 performance period you need to have billed more than $90,000 in Medicare Part B allowed charges for covered professional services under the PFS AND furnished covered professional services under the PFS to more than 200 Medicare Part B enrolled beneficiaries.

Find Out Today
Find out whether the clinicians in your group are eligible for MIPS today. And remember you can also use the MIPS Participation Lookup Tool to find out whether individual clinicians are eligible for the 2018 performance year without needing to login to the feature.

Get Help and Learn More
Contact the Quality Payment Program by email at qpp@cms.hhs.gov or toll free at 1.866.288.8292 (TTY: 1.877.715.6222), if you need help or have questions about using the QPP website.
contact information

For more details about the Improving Hypertension and Diabetes Care & Prevention project, please contact Rhonda Dodson.
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Funding provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Health through the State Public Health Actions to Prevent and Control 
Diabetes,  Heart Disease, Obesity and Associated Risk Factors and Promote School Health federal grant from the Centers for 
Disease Control  and Prevention. Publication number: PADOH-HD-051118