May, 2016

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Medicare Told to Cover CGMs in Ruling

Insulin Nation

Medicare doesn’t typically provide coverage for continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), as insurors who oversee Medicare coverage have long argued that CGMs are a “precautionary” device rather than a “medically necessary” one. Now, that argument’s premise is facing serious questions in federal court and in the Medicare appeals process. The first case that successfully pushed back against the policy involved Wisconsin resident Jill Whitcomb, who has had Type 1 diabetes for 40 years.

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A Different Approach to Health App Curation

Chilmark Research

In a recent fit of insomnia, I downloaded a free Electronic Arts version of Scrabble onto my Android phone. I made my decision based on four things: The name of the app, the name of the developer, its star rating in Google Play, and the user reviews, which offered a warning about annoying ads that I chose to ignore. However, the ads proved to be too much – as was the fact that the app didn’t work in airplane mode, which meant I couldn’t play while flying or otherwise trying to conserve my batter

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Healthcare Blockchain - Big-Data Pseudonyms on FHIR

Healthcare Exchange Standards

Grahame challenged us all to think about a realistic use-case for blockchain technology in Healthcare. Blockchain is a hugely hyped technology, because of the excitement of bitcoin. The technology is really not new, it is just a special mixture of crypto technologies, not unlike Digital Certificates; except rather than proof through decoupled proofs, blockchain has a public ledger where transactions must be recorded with proof that the transaction happened.

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New Case Study with Avera Health

American Well

Heading into 2015, Avera wanted to introduce a direct-to-consumer telehealth offering to complement its already established business-to-business telemedicine network. Avera aimed to offer video visits to a population of more than 1 million people, within an expansive 72,000 square miles. Here’s a recap of the recently released case study that highlights Avera’s goals and roadmap for its direct-to-consumer telehealth launch.

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HIPAA Compliance: Can Your Organization Avoid Costly Government Penalties and Fines?

Colington Consulting was established in 2013 and helps organizations achieve HIPAA compliance and ensures clients stay current with the latest enforcement trends. We provide a full range of HIPAA compliance services and consulting. What separates us from our competitors is our knowledge of HIPAA compliance regulations and their application to each of our client’s particular scenarios and requirements.

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Employers Weigh In On Actions In The Event Of An ACA Repeal

ACA Times

It should come as no surprise that the Affordable Care Act has produced a myriad of opinions from consumers to their employers to those in government. But what would happen if one day the ACA was no more? While only six years old, should the ACA be repealed one day, employers have their own actions in mind for employee health care should that day arrive.

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Life Expectancy Increases for People with Type 1

Insulin Nation

A new study on life expectancy and Type 1 diabetes has brought results that can be seen as glass half-empty or glass half-full. The bad news is that life expectancy for people with Type 1 is still shorter than that of the average population; the good news is that people with Type 1 are living longer than ever before. For the study, Australian researchers used government data to measure the life expectancy of people with Type 1 from 1997 to 2010, according to a report in Diabetes in Control.

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Virtua Navigates Orthopedic Patients Pre- & Post-Surgery with Improved Patient Engagement and Care Coordination

Consumer eHealth Engagement

WELLBE PLATFORM FOR PATIENT ENGAGEMENT With an aging population and increase in chronic conditions including obesity, the demand for hip and knee operation is increasing dramatically. A study in the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery estimates by 2030 “demand for total hip arthroplasties to grow by 174% to 572,000 and demand for primary total knee arthroplasties by 673% to 3.48 million procedures” Responding to this strong demand and high procedure expense, CMS launched the Comprehe

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Simplified #FHIR Privacy Consent Directive resource

Healthcare Exchange Standards

The most simple Privacy Consent Directive would really just be a YES/NO flag, so I don't actually mean that simple. What I mean is more simple than the last update I made, yet still functional. With the previous version I learned a few more things to be simplified. The most shocking that I forgot is that the most prevalent exception is to exclude data published duing a date/time range.

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Telemedicine Today: May 2016

American Well

Telemedicine Today: May 2016. Welcome to the May 2016 edition of Avizia’s Telemedicine Today! Each month we re-visit some of the most exciting news and influential events from the month. From success stories, to legislative updates, research findings and product updates, we’ll share the latest hypes, trends and news you can’t miss. Improving stroke outcomes, keeping kids in school, saving lives.

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The Secret to Supercharging Your Organizations Communications

Effective collaboration among all care team members is critical to delivering better patient outcomes. A key element to achieving effective collaboration is through the implementation of a clinical communication and collaboration platform. In a fast-paced, high-stress and critical environment, people tend to do whatever gets the job done. Therefore will scramble and use the systems, people, or processes around them to get an outcome more quickly - which can often be at the expense of quality.

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The Health Insurance Marketplace Sent You A Notice, Now What?

ACA Times

This tax year, employers may notice an uptick in documents mailed, due largely to the Affordable Care Act. From tax forms to other notices, much of this paperwork is difficult to decipher, since for many organizations this is the first time they’re reporting on health care coverage for their employees. One notice in particular may come from the Health Insurance Marketplace disclosing that an employee has obtained health insurance from the Marketplace but also received an advanced premium subsidy

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Ingestible origami surgical robot (a real-world Transformer)

Medicine and Technology

OK, maybe not quite a Transformer. But, researchers at MIT, the University of Sheffield, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have demonstrated how a tiny origami robot can unfold itself from a swallowed capsule and crawl across the stomach wall to remove a swallowed button battery or patch a wound. The robot is steered by external magnetic fields.

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Hey UHC, Here are 16 Reasons Pumps Aren’t a Commodity

Insulin Nation

Opinion By now, many of you have heard that UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, has opted to restrict choice of insulin pumps for its members to one brand. Because they were able to negotiate a more favorable price, UHC has designated Medtronic as their “preferred provider.” This will make it more difficult and more costly for adults covered by UHC to obtain an insulin pump other than one made by Medtronic.

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First Mother’s Day Without Mom

Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health

Patti Harvey, senior VP, Medicare Clinical Operations and Population Care, and executive director, Care Management Institute, has been a nurse for years, but nothing in her training prepared her for her role as her mother’s caregiver. On Mother’s Day, I will be thinking about the enormous influence my mother had on my life and work. Over the past 10 years, I have felt a strong personal connection to my work as a leader in care delivery at Kaiser Permanente.

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Ambiq’s neuralSPOT HeartKit™ enables Real-Time Heart Monitoring AI Applications

Ambiq®, a leading developer of ultra-low-power semiconductor solutions that deliver a multifold increase in energy efficiency, introduces HeartKit, its latest addition to neuralSPOT. This optimized AI model enables running various real-time heart monitoring applications to help users and their healthcare providers quickly identify any irregular events to take necessary actions.

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Public Comment period for IHE Advanced Patient Privacy Consents profile

Healthcare Exchange Standards

IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Framework Supplements Published for Public Comment The IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Committee has published the following Technical Framework Supplements for public comment in the period from May 27 to June 26, 2016 : Add RESTful Query to ATNA Advanced Patient Privacy Consent (APPC) Re-documentation Register On-Demand Document Transaction Mobile Alert Communication Management (mACM) The documents are available for download at [link].

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New Case Study with Avera Health

American Well

Heading into 2015, Avera wanted to introduce a direct-to-consumer telehealth offering to complement its already established business-to-business telemedicine network. Avera aimed to offer video visits to a population of more than 1 million people, within an expansive 72,000 square miles. Here’s a recap of the recently released case study that highlights Avera’s goals and roadmap for its direct-to-consumer telehealth launch.

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The Affordable Care Act Shows Big Wins For Kids

ACA Times

Of all the good the Affordable Care Act has done in the way of widespread health care, a recent report shows that our children have benefitted more than most. United Press International reports that close to one million children now have health care thanks to the Affordable Care Act. A study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that the ACA’s first full year of functioning, in 2014, displayed major strides in health coverage for kids.

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How to Avoid Overcorrecting for a Low

Insulin Nation

Integrated Diabetes Services (IDS) provides detailed advice and coaching on diabetes management from certified diabetes educators and dieticians. Insulin Nation hosts a regular Q&A column from IDS that answers questions submitted from the Type 1 diabetes community. Q – How do I treat a low without over-correcting for it? A – Everyone with Type 1 diabetes at one time or another has had a bad low, the kind when all you want to do is eat everything in sight.

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The 2023 Behavioral Health Industry Report

This report explores current issues in the behavioral health industry in 2023. Topics covered include quantitative statistics describing the overall increase in behavioral health issues, the impact of psychologist and staff burnout, how HIPAA compliance is once again at the top of our minds & much more!

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No One is Hiding a Cure for Type 1 Diabetes

Insulin Nation

“BS More pharma empire lies.” This comment, posted in response to a Type 1 research effort, is not uncommon in diabetes forums on Facebook. The pharmaceutical industry may provide the medicine that keeps people with Type 1 diabetes alive, and sponsor many conferences and diabetes-related websites (including, through advertising, this one), but it is also the biggest villain of the diabetes community.

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How I Curbed My Fear of Pregnancy with Type 1

Insulin Nation

Insulin Nation contributors Jennifer Smith and Ginger Vieira are collaborating on a book called Pregnancy with Type 1 Diabetes: Your Month-to-Month Guide for Diabetes Management. They have launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to help fund the book’s completion and publication. You can contribute here. Below this video about their campaign is an edited excerpt of this forthcoming book about how, after years of doubt, Ginger Vieira decided to become a mother.

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3 Ways to Adjust Insulin Intake During Workouts

Insulin Nation

Many people with Type 1 diabetes shy away from regular exercise out of fear of hypoglycemia, as exertion can change the rate that insulin is absorbed by the body. This is too bad, because regular exercise can help with overall blood sugar control. Besides, exercise is good for everyone. A group of French researchers set out to determine what insulin adjustments work best to lower the risk of hypoglycemia while working out.

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Social Media to Treat Type 1 Diabetes?

Insulin Nation

Young people with Type 1 are finding social media a useful tool for managing their diabetes, so much so that it is now being recommended as part of a treatment plan by UK healthcare policy-makers. A report by National Health Services (NHS) England suggests that healthcare providers utilize social media tools to keep young people with diabetes engaged in self-care.

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Patient Engagement & Cultural Competence Training Roadmap: A Guide to Reducing Staff Burnout

Speaker: Dr. Mauvareen Beverley, Patient Engagement and Cultural Competence Specialist

If you’re a healthcare provider, chances are you have experienced symptoms of burnout yourself or have colleagues who are currently facing extreme career dissatisfaction. One of the many ways to partially alleviate burnout is active patient engagement. By engaging with patients to understand their needs and preferences, healthcare providers can develop treatments tailored to the individual patient.

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Getting Started with Telehealth: The Top Five List

American Well

So you’re considering telehealth, but you’re wondering where to start. Here are the top five considerations you should take into account for a successful telehealth strategy and implementation. #1: Start with the end in mind. When you first begin seriously considering telehealth for your organization—whether it be a health system, health plan, employer, retailer, etc.

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Getting Started with Telehealth: The Top Five List

American Well

So you’re considering telehealth, but you’re wondering where to start. Here are the top five considerations you should take into account for a successful telehealth strategy and implementation. #1: Start with the end in mind. When you first begin seriously considering telehealth for your organization—whether it be a health system, health plan, employer, retailer, etc.

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10 Memes to Explain the UHC-Medtronic Controversy

Insulin Nation

Heard about some kind of trouble involving insulin pumps and health insurance, but can’t bring yourself to read up on it? We understand – health care policy is not the sexiest news topic. That’s why we decided to explain the recent UnitedHealthcare-Medtronic controversy in 10 memes. Have a quick read: 1. Health care costs are rising rapidly, especially for people with chronic conditions like diabetes.

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Australia May Subsidize CGMs

Insulin Nation

An election cycle brings out a bevy of promises, as politicians attempt to win over small groups of key swing voters. When Australians head to the polls July 2nd, the ruling Liberal-National Coalition hopes to retain power partly by winning over 120,000 people with Type 1 diabetes and their families. The government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has proposed a subsidy of $56 million (AUD) for diabetes technology.

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How to Battle Layoffs: The Career Star Accelerator Bootcamp

Facing layoffs in your organization? Support your team members' career transition with Career Star Accelerator Bootcamp: Custom Resume & LinkedIn Revamp + 6 Weeks of Career Coaching. Our certified resume writers will create job search-winning resumes and LinkedIn profiles while they work with a career coach to learn unique strategies to stand out, attract the right employers, automate their job search, and land their dream job.

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A Clothing Line for Those with Type 1 Diabetes

Insulin Nation

There are many in the Type 1 community who have created gear to help others with diabetes. From time to time, we will feature snapshots of Type 1-based businesses for our “Type 1 entrepreneurs” series. Erin Murray felt isolated after her diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes seven years ago, as people around her did not seem to understand the challenges that come with the condition.

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Testing Metformin to Prevent Type 1 Diabetes

Insulin Nation

Last November, JDRF officials announced that researchers had found biological markers for Type 1 diabetes long before symptoms appeared in children. Now another group of researchers hope to see if they can prevent Type 1 before children become symptomatic, and to do it they are planning to use a classic tool in diabetes management – metformin.

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I Was Afraid of My Son Playing Soccer with Type 1

Insulin Nation

Until recently, I wouldn’t let my son, Branden, play soccer because of his Type 1 diabetes. Branden was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 2, and spent a week in intensive care at the time. When he was 6 years old, we decided to enroll him in a local soccer league, but I soon began to have doubts. I worried about what playing such a physically demanding sport would do to his blood sugar levels, and I envisioned him collapsing on the soccer field.

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