APP Key Messages | Feb. 24, 2022

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Feb. 24, 2022

In this issue

MSSP Beneficiary Notification
Epic Connect Program Restarts
2022 Virtual Annual Meetings

Our Focus for a Successful 2002

Gary Stuck, DO, FAAFP, CEO, APP | Chief Medical Officer

Don Calcagno, President, APP | SVP, Population Health & Managed Care

Carrie Nelson, MD, MS, FAAFP, Chief Clinical Officer, APP | SVP/CMO Population Health & Health Outcomes

It’s hard to believe we’re already more than one month into the new year. We recognize that we all continue to face challenges outside of our control with the uncertainty of the pandemic along with a national staffing crisis.

We also know that your commitment to the highest quality patient care is unwavering. In short, you inspire us and we are more committed to supporting your success than ever. We see more opportunities for APP to support our practices and are committed to finding ways to ensure you are best enabled to direct your focus on caring for the patients you serve. Stay tuned for such news in upcoming communications. In the meantime, here are some items of focus that can drive success in the new year.

Medicare Wellness Visit (MWV): Engage patients early for this yearly visit to help address chronic conditions and close quality care gaps. Our Support: We conduct outreach on your behalf through automated calls to encourage patients schedule these visits. Earlier this month, we also sent letters to your Devoted Health patients to make an appointment. You also have access to our MWV Playbook with tips from scheduling to conducting the visit along with a Process Improvement toolkit and more resources on APP Pro.

Chronic Condition Refresh: Refresh care plans for chronic conditions at all visits so we are effectively managing patients’ health and are accurately reimbursed for the care provided. This also ensures patients can receive the benefit of various disease management programs. Our Support: Through our Clinical Risk Adjustment Consultants, each physician has access to subject matter experts within their PHO. We have created various tools and playbooks specifically designed to support your success in managing and documenting patient conditions available on APP Pro.

Screenings: Encourage patients to have all appropriate annual screenings. Our Support: Through our robust patient outreach program, we send targeted communications to your patients based on care gaps – including screenings – via email, direct mail and phone calls. We also provide Process Improvement toolkits on screenings on APP Pro.

Medicare Advantage (MA) Stars: Ensure strong performance on MA Stars measures. CMS rates MA plans annually on how they perform in both quality and utilization. Higher star ratings highlight quality care and potential to earn more incentives for distribution. Our Support: In addition to our patient outreach that supports MA Stars measures, we also have a dedicated page on APP Pro listing opportunities for improvement and tactics.

Transitional Care Management (TCM): Get patients in for a visit shortly after a hospital discharge, ideally within 2-7 days, to promote medication reconciliation, high quality care and coordination of care with other specialists. Our Support: Care Transitions nurses conduct an initial TCM call for patients who are at high risk for readmission to make sure they have a TCM visit scheduled after discharge.

Government Programs

2022 MSSP beneficiary notification: If you participate in our MSSP ACO, you are required to adhere to an annual CMS beneficiary notification process. Beneficiaries are your patients in the program who must be notified of their participation and option to opt out. CMS has created two documents for this process – a Beneficiary Information Notice and a Poster that are now available and must be put into immediate use. Your patients will also receive the Notice in the mail. Learn more.

Virtual Annual Meetings: Save the Date!

Get the latest updates and information to support our shared success in 2022. There will be ample time for Q&A – your questions and feedback are welcome and encouraged! Gary Stuck, DO, FAAFP, Don Calcagno and Carrie Nelson, MD, MS, FAAFP, will be joined by your local PHO leadership.

Stay tuned for a direct Microsoft Teams calendar invitation.

Central Chicagoland

April 12 | 5:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Illinois Masonic, Lutheran, Good Samaritan, Legacy Dreyer

South Chicagoland

April 14 | 5:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Christ, South Suburban, Trinity

North Illinois

April 20 | 5:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Condell, Good Shepherd, Sherman

Supporting Your Practice

Clinical Integration weekly update: View the latest program update .

Two-step verification coming to LiveWell with Advocate Aurora Health: On March 2, Advocate Aurora is turning on two-step verification for all LiveWell users. Two-step verification adds an additional layer of security, beyond password, to confirm identity and protect patient account information. Set-up is quick and easy. See these tip sheets and FAQ to answer patient questions Website | App | FAQ.

Expanded Visitor Policy: All Advocate Aurora Health facilities will move to the expanded visitor policy effective March 1:

Hospital inpatients and outpatients: Two visitors
Emergency department: Two visitors
Pediatrics: Two visitors
Ambulatory clinics and surgery centers: Two support people for children and one support person for adults
No age requirement for visitors except for pediatric patient visitors, who must be 18 or older
Review the Visitor Guidelines regularly for updates and more details.

COVID-19 Asymptomatic Testing Update: With decreasing demand for testing and plenty of testing supply available in both states, we no longer need to direct asymptomatic testing to community testing sites. Effective immediately, we are resuming standard operations for referring asymptomatic testing to our immediate care and urgent care centers and Walgreens clinics. We are updating our consumer-facing communications to reflect this change. As a reminder, asymptomatic testing may be scheduled in LiveWell.

Expanding Eligibility for EVUSHELD: EVUSHELD (tixagevimab/cilgavimab) is now available for patients who meet Category 1 or 2 criteria for the prevention of COVID-19 for those unlikely to mount a sufficient immune response to the vaccine and/or unable to receive the vaccine. Please consider your patients who are eligible for and may benefit from EVUSHELD and place a therapy order using the following process:

Review and confirm that your patient meets Category 1 or 2 criteria (see pgs 8-9)
Contact your patient to confirm their interest and consent.
Place a therapy order for EVUSHELD in the way your office typically places orders with Advocate Aurora Health – via Epic, phone or paper order. Please do not place a prescription order.
The patient will be contacted by staff at the nearest available Advocate Aurora EVUSHELD administration location to schedule an appointment.

Review this SBAR for more details.

Understanding EVUSHELD, Paxlovid, Molnupiravir and Sotrovimab: Watch this 5-minute webinar (Advocate login required) which covers indication, dosing, adverse events, efficacy and availability for each of these COVID-19 therapeutics. Access the slides here.

Pediatric mental health – ask the experts: In the latest Facebook Live Q&A, Frank Belmonte, DO, and other pediatric experts answered questions about the pediatric mental health crisis during COVID-19. Watch now.

Epic Updates

APP Epic Connect program update

The APP Epic Connect Program has been redesigned and restarted following our pause in November to support our first pilot practices. Despite the challenges, feedback we’ve received reinforces that Epic is the right platform to support our physicians in providing safe, high quality care to our patients.

Here’s how we are putting lessons learned into action:

Redesigned the program offering with small practices in mind
Developed an APP-specific training environment
Providing additional support – including a practice relationship manager, a dedicated team post-Go Live and a structured issues management process
Increasing oversight of third parties, such as the Claims Clearinghouse
Providing more clarity before Go Live – including expectations and technical requirements
Executing a rigorous operations readiness plan prior to Go Live

Timeline & next steps:

We are continuing our pilots with 2 practices in May and 2 practices in June 2022, followed by our first full waves in September and November 2022.
APP eligible practices will be contacted once their wave is identified.

We look forward to moving ahead on our Epic journey to strengthen our role as national leaders in transforming health care. We are especially proud to be building a world class program based on the voice and experiences of our physicians – underscoring our commitment to being physician-led in all we do. Contact APP-EpicConnect@aah.org with questions.

Additional Epic Updates

Medication recommendations coming to your In-Basket

Beginning Q1 2022, the Enterprise Population Health Pharmacy team will send Epic and EpicCare Link In-Basket messages to physicians and APCs containing medication recommendations for your patients in the Advocate Aurora team member health plan to help you close potential care gaps and optimize therapeutic outcomes. View SBAR.

Epic Update: Hospital edition for physicians and APCs: The latest Epic Update: Hospital edition for physicians and APCs includes updates on a new best practice alert indicating a patient’s code status has changed, Care Select imaging support tool and heparin calculator implementation.

Advancing Research

New! Research Authorization and Protocol Review: Advocate Aurora Research Institute’s new Research Authorization and Protocol Review (RAPR) process was developed to allow for a more transparent evaluation process and to ensure:

All research conducted at Advocate Aurora aligns with strategic priorities.
Selection and authorization is awarded to sponsored and investigator-initiated studies of the highest quality and impact.
Learn more about the new process.

Extensive TAVR research: Interventional cardiologist Tanvir Bajwa, MD, leads a clinical trial at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center, studying a new potential replacement heart valve and continuing its long history of research into minimally invasive heart valve replacements. View story.

Continuing Medical Education and Events

2nd Annual Multidisciplinary Critical Care Symposium

Thursday, March 10 | 8 a.m. – 3 p.m.

The symposium will focus on continued partnership between intensivists and those outside of the ICU to reduce the time from recognition to initiation of evidence-based critical care interventions.