Insights

HMA Insights: Your source for healthcare news, ideas and analysis.

HMA Insights – including our new podcast – puts the vast depth of HMA’s expertise at your fingertips, helping you stay informed about the latest healthcare trends and topics. Below, you can easily search based on your topic of interest to find useful information from our podcast, blogs, webinars, case studies, reports and more.

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1804 Results found.

Webinar

Webinar Replay: Medication Assisted Treatment: Are You Ready?

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This webinar was held on June 12, 2019 and was the seventh webinar in a series about addressing the opioid crisis in America.

Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) has been proven to successfully treat opioid use disorder and can be offered in outpatient settings alongside treatment for other chronic medical and behavioral health conditions. However, many providers are unfamiliar with the nuances of providing this treatment in their practices. What’s needed is a systematic understanding of the various operational and regulatory issues that providers will face when providing MAT.

During this webinar, HMA clinicians addressed some of the key considerations for practices looking to offer MAT. They also demonstrated how the use of a readiness assessment tool can help providers identify and work through a variety of potential problem areas, leading to implementation of a successful MAT program.

Learning Objectives

  1. Learn how to institute new workflows and manage the type of change that will come with providing access to MAT.
  2. Understand best practices for integrating MAT into an already busy practice, including the issues of staffing and scheduling.
  3. Find out how to make MAT financially sustainable, including an understanding of billing and coding rules.
  4. Learn how to ensure compliance with Drug Enforcement Administration regulations and requirements.

HMA Speakers

  • Scott Haga PA-C, Senior Consultant, Lansing
  • Jean Glossa, MD, MBA, Managing Principal for Clinical Services Washington, DC

Who Should Listen

Outpatient primary care and behavioral health providers considering adding MAT to their scope of practice, health systems interested in supporting outpatient providers, payers and health plans.

Blog

HMA Analysis of Modernizing Part D and Medicare Advantage to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Expenses Final Rule

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On May 16, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its final rule, Modernizing Part D and Medicare Advantage to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Expenses (Final Rule). The proposed rule, which was issued in November 2018, included a number of provisions intended to improve drug price transparency and expand use of utilization management tools to further Medicare Advantage and Part D cost-cutting efforts. However, in response to significant pushback from beneficiary advocates, physician groups, insurers, and pharmaceutical stakeholders, CMS elected not to implement key provisions. These include proposals to allow Part D plans to exclude protected class drugs from formularies as a result of price increases or if the drug is a new formulation of an existing single-source drug as well as proposed reforms to pharmacy price concessions that would require discounts be passed on to beneficiaries at the point of sale. Commenters in opposition to the pharmacy price concession proposal contend that these reforms would result in higher Part D premiums. While CMS has postponed addressing this provision in this Final Rule, the recently issued Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) proposed rule, if finalized, may include fundamental changes to these pricing arrangements and other federal safe harbors to the anti-kickback statute. 

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Blog

Kentucky Releases Medicaid MCO RFP

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This week, our In Focus section reviews the Kentucky Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) request for proposals (RFP), issued by the Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet on May 16, 2019. The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS), Department for Medicaid Services (DMS) will select up to five Medicaid MCOs to manage health care services for more than 1.2 million people, starting July 2020. Contracts are estimated at more than $7 billion.

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Webinar

Webinar Replay: Creating Effective Health and Law Enforcement Partnerships to Combat the Opioid Epidemic

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This webinar was held on June 5, 2019, and was the sixth webinar in a series about addressing the opioid crisis in America.

Multi-sector collaboration is a key strategy for reversing the upward trend in opioid-related deaths, and there are tremendous opportunities to develop solutions through health and law enforcement partnerships. Historically, these sectors held divergent viewpoints and practices to best address opioid use. But today, successful collaborations involving health and public safety leaders are emerging across the country in response to the opioid crisis.

During this webinar, experts from HMA and the New York City Police Department explored key elements in a multi-sector approach to address opioid use, built on a foundation of shared ownership of policies, system response, and programmatic interventions.

Learning Objectives

  1. Understand the key challenges to partnerships between health systems and law enforcement.
  2. Learn strategies for strengthening partnerships in which law enforcement, health professionals and community members work together to respond to the opioid crisis.
  3. Obtain examples of successful collaboration from around the country.
  4. Uncover current funding opportunities to support your health and law enforcement partnerships.

Speakers

  • Laquisha Grant, Senior Consultant, New York City
  • Ashley Restaino, Managing Director, Staten Island PPS
  • Theresa Tobin, Deputy Chief, New York City Police Department
  • John Volpe, Principal, New York City

Who Should Listen

Officials of state and local government, law enforcement, fire departments, emergency response, crisis hotlines and crisis centers; executives of hospitals, health systems, mobile crisis units, and affiliated community providers and payers of crisis services, including Medicaid payers.

Webinar

Webinar Replay: Advancing and Codifying Health Equity and Wellness for Medicaid Populations

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This webinar was held on June 4, 2019. 

It’s widely recognized that social determinants of health (SDOH) have a significant impact on mortality and morbidity. Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) play a significant role in addressing SDOH factors that drive health disparities and poor health outcomes. CBOs are directly connected to the populations they serve and commonly address an array of overlapping clinical and social service needs. However, CBOs face many challenges creating meaningful partnerships with health care organizations (HCOs) and health plans. Addressing these challenges is important so CBO contributions can be scaled through a more integrative and inclusive approach within the healthcare system.

During this webinar, experts from the Disability Policy Consortium (DPC) and the Arthur Ashe Institute of Urban Health (AAIUH) joined HMA to discuss the recent issue brief, published by Academy Health, which detailed lessons learned from CBOs in New York and Massachusetts.

Learning Objectives

  1. How CBOs can advance health equity and wellness goals for the individuals and communities that are the focus of Medicaid payment and care delivery system reform.
  2. How New York supported CBO engagement in its Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) plan.
  3. What the challenges CBOs have experienced in healthcare reform.
  4. Why we need a National Blueprint for Advancing Health Equity by leveraging the nation’s CBOs to facilitate greater cross-sector collaboration between CBOs and HCOs.

Speakers

Dennis Heaphy, Health Policy Advocate, Disability Policy Consortium, Boston
Humberto Brown, The Arthur Ashe Institute of Urban Health (AAIUH), NYC
Ellen Breslin, HMA, Principal, Boston
Heidi Arthur, HMA, Principal, NYC

Who Should Listen

Executives of Medicaid and Medicaid-Medicare health plans; community, state and federal policy makers and program administrator; CBO and Accountable Care Organization leaders); advocates; and members of the community working to remove barriers to advance health equity and wellness for Medicaid populations.

Blog

Medicaid and Exchange Enrollment Update – January 2019

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This week, our In Focus section reviews updated information issued by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Medicaid expansion enrollment from the “January 2019 Medicaid and CHIP Applications, Eligibility Determination, and Enrollment Report,” published on April 25, 2019. Additionally, we review 2019 Exchange enrollment data from the “Health Insurance Exchanges 2019 Open Enrollment Period: Final State-Level Public Use File,” published by CMS on March 25, 2019. Combined, these reports present a picture of Medicaid and Exchange enrollment in 2019, representing 72.4 million Medicaid and CHIP enrollees and 11.4 million Exchange enrollees.

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