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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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1825 Results found.

Webinar

Webinar Replay: The Importance of Race and Ethnicity in Accounting for Social Risks in Medicare Value-Based Payments

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This webinar was held on April 3, 2019. 

Medicare value-based payments are increasingly considering social risk factors such as income and other elements of socioeconomic disadvantage. However, race and ethnicity are often left out of the mix, an approach that can create significant problems for providers attempting to adequately account for financial risks when entering into value-based payment arrangements.

During this webinar, experts from HMA, the National Committee for Quality Assurance and Anka Consulting discussed the importance of race and ethnicity in addressing social risks. Speakers also addressed how payers, providers and accountable care organizations can best mitigate these risks, ensuring that value-based payment arrangements are equitable, sustainable, and best serve patient needs.

Learning Objectives

  1. Understand current thinking about accounting for social risks in value-based payment arrangements and why to this point race and ethnicity have been deemphasized.
  2. Learn the key explanatory concepts for why race plays an important role in health disparities and risk, including minority stress, resilience, life course and epigenetics.
  3. Find out how to mitigate risk factors associated with race and ethnicity through flexible payment models and trauma-information approaches to care.

Speakers

  • Maddy Shea, Principal, HMA Community Strategies
  • Judy Ng, Research Scientist, National Committee for Quality Assurance
  • Kima Taylor, MD, Managing Principal, Anka Consulting, LLC

Who Should Listen

Executives and clinicians from accountable care organizations, hospitals, health systems and health plans; regulators, and others interested in value-based payments and risk adjustment.

Blog

Analysis of Key Medicare Proposals in the President’s FY 2020 Budget

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This week, our In Focus comes to us from HMA Senior Consultant Narda Ipakchi. On March 11, 2019, the White House released President Trump’s budget for fiscal year (FY) 2020, which includes a number of legislative and administrative proposals related to Medicare that would reduce net Medicare spending by $811 billion over the next ten years. It is important to note that the legislative proposals included in the President’s budget are non-binding and serve as recommendations to Congress where they may or may not be advanced. Under a Democratic-majority House of Representatives, many of the legislative proposals outlined in the FY 2020 budget are unlikely to advance. Several of the policies, however, such as reductions to Medicare bad debt and implementing site neutral payment systems were also proposed by the previous administration. Administrative proposals are more likely to move forward, as the administration can implement these policies through its regulatory channels.

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Blog

Will Hospitals Serving Racial and Ethnic Minorities Lose Out in a Value-Based Payment World?

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HMA Principal Madeleine Shea, with her partners from the National Committee for Quality Assurance and American Hospital Association, recently authored the Health Equity article, Explaining the Relationship between Minority Group Status and Health Disparities. While federal policy has moved in the direction of adjusting for poverty and disability as proxies for social risks, this article keeps the focus on race and ethnicity as a major explanation for health disparities in the United States.

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Webinar

Webinar Replay: Overcoming Stigma of Opioid Use Disorder: Lessons for Providers, Payers, Policymakers, and the Healthcare Community at Large

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This webinar was held on March 28, 2019, and was the fourth webinar in a series about addressing the opioid crisis in America.

The stigma associated with opioid use disorder impacts not only individuals seeking treatment, it also colors the attitudes of payers and providers charged with helping those struggling with addiction. The results can be devastating, with individuals avoiding care, providers refusing to administer certain treatments – including the Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) – and both patients and their families left with limited options.

During this webinar, HMA experts outlined the barriers to effective treatment caused by the stigma of opioid use disorder. Speakers also offered a series of concrete steps that payers and providers can take to ensure patients are seeking and receiving the best treatment options available.

Learning Objectives

  1. Learn best practices for overcoming the stigma associated with opioid use disorder and increasing patient engagement in treatment.
  2. Understand how shame influences treatment choices among patients and families impacted by opioid use disorder and how stigma impacts the availability of treatment options.
  3. Find out how to identify and address punitive attitudes that may result in barriers for individuals in need of treatments such as MAT.
  4. Learn how providers are working to overcome the stigma associated with mental healthcare, HIV/AIDS, and other conditions, and why their experiences offer important insights for opioid addiction treatment.

HMA Speakers

  • Barry Jacobs, PsyD, Principal, Philadelphia
  • Uche Uchendu, MD, Principal, Washington, DC

Who Should Listen

State and local public health and behavioral health practitioners, Medicaid, and addiction treatment providers; clinical and administrative leaders of provider organizations, health systems, correctional health facilities, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and other provider organizations; executives of Medicaid managed care organizations and behavioral health plans.

Webinar

Webinar Replay: The Role of Medicaid Managed Care Plans in Addressing the Opioid Crisis

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This webinar was held on March 14, 2019 and was the third webinar in a series about addressing the opioid crisis in America.

Medicaid managed care plans are poised to play a significant role in helping states address the opioid crisis by incentivizing utilization of effective therapies and developing policies that help stem the flow of prescription opioid drugs. Health plans are also developing models aimed at coordinating and improving treatment of opioid use disorder.

During this webinar, HMA public health and prevention experts provided an overview of current health plan opioid initiatives and offered a roadmap for future treatment and prevention strategies.

Learning Objectives

  1. Learn how health plans can help prevent the proliferation of opioid prescriptions.
  2. Find out what you need to know about the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities (SUPPORT) Act, also known as HR-6, and what it means for health plans.
  3. Understand the role of alternate payment models and value-based reimbursements in driving the best opioid care.
  4. Learn how new controlled substance provisions aimed at expanding Medication Assisted Therapy will impact health plans.
  5. Understand where health plans are having the most success in driving opioid prevention and treatment as well as where plans are seeing challenges.

HMA Speakers

  • Craig Thiele, MD, Principal, Columbus

Who Should Listen
State and local public health and behavioral health practitioners, Medicaid, addiction treatment providers; clinical and administrative leaders of provider organizations, health systems, correctional health facilities, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and other provider organizations; executives of Medicaid managed care organizations and behavioral health plans. Attendees are encouraged to join the conversation and submit questions on Twitter using #HMAtalksOpioids.

Blog

Louisiana Releases Medicaid MCO RFP

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This week, our In Focus reviews the Louisiana Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) request for proposals (RFP), released by the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) on February 25, 2019. Selected MCOs will manage health care services for more than 1.5 million Medicaid enrollees statewide, starting January 2020.

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Blog

Minnesota Releases Medicaid Managed Care RFPs

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This week, our In Focus reviews requests for proposals (RFPs) for Minnesota’s Medicaid managed care programs: 1. Families and Children Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare; 2. Minnesota Senior Care Plus (MSC+)/Minnesota Senior Health Options (MSHO). The two RFPs were released by the Minnesota Department of Human Services on February 25, 2019, with implementation scheduled to begin on January 1, 2020 for all programs.

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