Feeling the Pain ? ACO ACA HIX HIE HHS CMS ICD10

We physicians have some difficulty objectively measuring pain.  Even subjectively it becomes a challenge when your patient asks for pain medications.

The standard of medical practice now is to ask, "What is your pain level from 1-10 if 10 would be the worst pain  you have ever felt, and 0 is no pain whatsoeverl.  Even this scale is very subjective and is based upon what that patient considers his worst pain.  That depends on many factors. Patients who have never had any pain would not know what the worst pain would be.  Pain thresholds differ greatly from one patient to ano ther.  Comparing one patient to another with  this metric is meaningless.  Perhaps we should set a standard as labor pains. This standard however would only apply to women.

All of the above acronyms are a feature of health reform, which is not painless. The medical lexicon includes countless three letter or four letter acronyms, which are too lengthy to describe here.

ACO, ICD-10, MU, PCMH, and PQRS are more than just an acronym soup. 

Karen DeSalvo now the head of ONC and a former primary care physician from Louisana is the lady for the job of reducing our pain. (perhaps hypnosis, denial, or retirment would be better than the narcotic of acceptance and/or major revision of how government interacts with healthcare.

Diana Manos of Health IT News describes DeSalvo's background: 

To advance America’s triple aim of improving the experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing per capita costs of healthcare, DeSalvo outlined five key goals, which ONC will be focused on over this, the second decade of its work.

They are:

1. Increase end user adoption of health IT
2. Establish standards so the various technologies can speak to each other
3. Provide the right incentives for the market to drive this advancement
4. Make sure personal health information remains private and secure
5. Provide governance and structure for health IT

DeSalvo believes interoperability remains the most important issue as a framework for Health Reform.

Despite more than half a decade of progress, Interoperability appears to have stalled.

Michael Schatzlein MD 

of Asencio Health describes the current status of interoperabillity and it's future in the world of the internet.  It's greatest hope is the present generation of internet enabled patients who will demand interoperability, perhaps at the ballot box if bureaucrats cannot accomplish the goal..  The federal government has already invested billions of dollars of your tax money toward this goal.

ACA Enrollment Issue? If All Else Fails Try Social Media

From Fierce Health Payers

Many consumers can't get through to insurers due to long customer service wait times, so they're turning to social media--Twitter in particular--to express their complaints and criticisms. And insurers are listening, often responding directly to consumers with ways to immediately rectify the problems.

The Affordable Care Act has severely effected customer service for all companies participating in the affordable care act.  Frustration has mounted even for those not involved with health benefit exchanges or subsidized care. Anthem Blue Cross in California is experiencing the brunt of many tweets after it canceled individual plans and switched hundreds of its members into new plans and withdrew premiums from their bank accounts without their knowledge. In several situations, Anthem spokesperson Darrel Ng tweeted individually to people who complained about the withdrawals, asking for their contact information so he could resolve the problem, ProPublica reported.

Did you know that Anthem has been using social media for customer service and complaints for some time?

Ng told ProPublica that consumers now are interacting with companies, including Anthem, beyond the traditional phone call. "In response to this new demand, we created our customer service Twitter account @AskAnthem several years ago to assist members," he said. "As consumers themselves started proactively contacting our other Twitter accounts, we started directing these inquiries to customer service for assistance."

Aetna spokesperson Matt Wiggin said the insurer recognizes people are using other methods to communicate. "There have been some instances where call volumes have been heavy and if people have not been able to get through or been able to get the information we need, they've either reached out to us through social media or other means available," he told ProPublica.

California HealthCare Foundation has been tracking Twitter comments related to the reform law and its recentreport found less conversation about the law between December 2013 and Jan. 15, 2014, compared to several months ago when HealthCare.gov launched with glitches and enrollment errors.

Recognizing consumers take more frequently to Twitter, insurers Aetna and Cigna have been maintaining a strong social media presence to manage their brand while taking quick action to remedy any complaints aired publicly,FierceHealthPayer previously reported.

"Social media gives us a tremendous opportunity to learn what the community needs," Carissa O'Brien, Aetna's social media director, told KHN. And by using Twitter, Aetna can educate and inform their followers about health and wellness.

She and her team of six employees aim to respond within an hour of the roughly 250 Tweets each month dealing with claims and other services. But O'Brien recognizes that it's just the beginning. "If we're looking to focus a 100-plus-year-old company on social media, that's massive cultural change," she said.

Using Twitter also keeps the insurers accountable. "Social media acts as a public documentation of how you resolve the situation," Ini Augustine, a social media strategist and head of SocialWise Media Group, told KHN. "It's more than a marketing tool."

Insurers like Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna have designated Twitter feeds, @aetnahelp   @askanthem and @cignaquestions, respectively, that focus solely on marketing and sharing health-related news.

            

Read more: Insurers increase their Twitter presence to manage image - FierceHealthPayer http://www.fiercehealthpayer.com/story/insurers-increase-their-twitter-presence-manage-image/2013-08-09#ixzz2sP3Ud2Nd
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