Hurry Up and Wait... For Your Mandate

This is the mentality in much of US Healthcare and is a driving force behind the change in our industry landscape. Many of you will disagree to an extent, but if you have been involved in US Healthcare for any period of time you know there is some truth to this statement.

Some will want to label this shift and play the name game by blaming our current President or calling this disruption, as a result of Obamacare. I am not a fan of blame only resolution. This is much the reason I left my career and founded HCXperience Inc / The Survey Cloud (TSC). TSC is the Solution to the extreme paper and money waste in healthcare on (paper, IVR) HCAHPS surveys, but that is for another post.

For example, if I say ICD-10 codes how many of you automatically get an uneasy feeling? Now, how long has that been a burden to you as a healthcare practitioner or to your Healthcare Organization as a whole? The US has been talking of this implementation since 2008, in 09' set the deadline to 2013... and then it was extended... and then extended again. How about the extended deadline for EHR adoption now set for 2015 and penalties attached "If Medicare eligible professionals, or EPs, do not adopt and successfully demonstrate meaningful use of a certified electronic health record (EHR) technology by 2015." (https://www.healthit.gov/)

I have been on the data collection side of Healthcare since 2000. I have watched and participated in the collection/adoption of Core Measures and watched it grow from the meaningful collection of data for CAPS, AMI and HF performance measure sets in Acute Care Hospitals to become the complicated, time consuming, money driven monster it is today. I worked for a beta vendor at the introduction of HCAHPS and took hundreds of phone calls from frustrated patients who just wanted to voice their concern to their healthcare provider. As the primary contact for the CMS/TJC vendor I could do nothing but listen, offer an ear and a phone number as I quickly searched for their named Acute Care Organization.

I have worked with hundreds of Long Term Acute Care (LTAC) hospitals as their TJC vendor. Many have been waiting for years and under the impression that LTACHs will be next to collect the mandated HCAHPS survey. So much, that many still waste time and money on the paper/IVR methodology to collect the same data as the mandated ACOs, insisting that the data is comparable? I could mention the extended deadline for the ED-CAHPS survey in this same sentence.

I think you now understand where I am coming from. In all of this, where is the patient??

With all of the bureaucratic red tape consistently haunting our industry can anyone blame the direction US Healthcare is going?

I for one applaud the effort of the private owners within these Urgent Care locations, the Retail Clinics, "Minute Clinics", walk-in clincs, etc. These are the healthcare practitioners and providers that decided that the wait is over. These types of locations are popping up everywhere and are meeting the patient where they are! The Doctor and/or Nurse Practitioner can get back to basics, treating patients and creating a practice where the patient and the provider's needs are met.

This is not a time when US Healthcare can afford to keep waiting.

It is in my humble opinion that the "Hurry Up and Wait for Your Mandate" US Healthcare mantra that we all have come to know and loath is gradually killing the American Hospital as we know it.

While US Healthcare continues to wait for their care or the next mandate I will be in and out of my local Urgent Care in less than an hour... while offering my patient experience survey responses on an iPad for immediate reports and patient feedback. I did throw a little shameless self-promotion in there. ;-)

With all of this said our goal and motivation is to help US Healthcare in our area of expertise! In the 2010 or 2011 Final Rule it was mentioned that they were investigating the digital submission of HCAHPS data!! This would be brilliant and would save US Healthcare hundreds of thousands of dollars alone in postage and paper!!...

CMS if you decide to entertain that "investigation" again I will be here waiting... and waiting...

#PatientExperience #ImproveHealthcare #LTACH #HCAHPS #UrgentCare #PX #HC