The Treatspace Referral Management Blog

Insight, ideas, and resources for high-performance referral management

It's Ridiculous That Health Records Systems Don't Talk To Each Other

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 2/10/17 10:53 AM

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Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden both care a great deal about digital health technology systems. Even when they had less than two weeks left in the White House, physicians' ability to share patient health records digitally was top of mind — and on the same day, too!

According to Politico’s Morning eHealth newsletter, it was “the first time since the gods called this newsletter into existence [that] President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden both talked on the same day about health IT”.

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Topics: Coordinated Care, Referral Network, Interoperability, HIT, Healthcare Data, Care Transitions

Come Together, Right Now, Over Referrals

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 8/18/16 8:04 AM

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Hospitals and Health Networks Magazine recently championed the concept of primary care physicians and specialists working closely together as partners, rather than continuing disconnected referral relationships.

Partnering with Primary Care

H&HN’s article touts the increased efficiency and improved patient care in organizations with tightly aligned specialty and primary care partners.

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Topics: Referral Management, Interoperability, HIT, Referral Management Application

Why Don’t More Doctors Electronically Share Records Outside of Their Practice?

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 8/16/16 5:00 AM

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Healthcare practitioners want to provide the best care for their patients both during and after office visits. But one major stumbling block is that the majority of physicians in the United States aren’t capable of sharing information electronically outside of their practices. Data shows that the majority of primary care practices are struggling to seamlessly share patient information, efficiently manage referrals, and facilitate interoperable communication with specialist partners.

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Topics: Referral Management, Interoperability

The Government is Driving Referral Management and So Should You

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 5/24/16 10:15 AM

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Updated February 2017

In almost every speech given in 2016, Andy Slavitt, the former Acting Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has emphasised the priority of closing referral loops to strengthen patient care coordination.

Independent practices have less than a year to prepare for newly developed value-based care reimbursement guidelines. The option to test the quality payment program under MIPS and MACRA will no longer be in play beginning in 2018. In view of the challenging financial penalties of value-based payment, many practice leaders are struggling to find an efficient way to close referral loops.

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Topics: Referral Management, Closed-Loop Referral Management, Interoperability, Closed-Loop Referrals

High Performance Referral Management vs EHRs

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 5/11/16 5:30 PM

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It would be easier to coordinate team-based medical care on facebook rather than with EHR systems.

- John Halamka, CIO | Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and co-chair of the federal HIT Standards Committee, at the HIMSS conference in March 20161

EHRs aren’t enough

A common misconception is that an electronic health record (EHR) can close referral loops and provide high-performance referral management for primary care practices. However, not long after EHRs were implemented, users quickly realized that EHRs alone are not able to establish a pipeline that allows data to flow between PCPs and specialists from different organizations.2

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Topics: Care Coordination, Healthcare Analytics, Referral Management, Closed-Loop Referral Management, Interoperability

The Perilous Referral Management Journey [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 4/22/16 6:02 PM

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The New England Journal of Medicine describes the traditional patient referral process as a perilous journey [1]. Right off the bat, only half of patients show up to their referred specialty physician appointments [2].

In fact, the referral process is so fragmented that even when patients do show up to their specialist appointments, only 32% of specialists will receive clinical information from the PCP prior to seeing the referred patient. [3]

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Topics: Coordinated Care, Healthcare Analytics, Referral Management, Interoperability, Closed-Loop Referrals