Mirabelli takes office as new HFMA Chair
Mary Mirabelli, FHFMA, was inducted into office as Chair of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) Board of Directors for the 2016-2017 term during HFMA’s annual conference in Las Vegas. Her term began June 1.
Mirabelli will be responsible for providing overall direction to the association through establishing policies, appointing key leaders, planning educational programs, and representing the association at various events.
Mirabelli presently serves as Vice President, Global Healthcare Practice, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
Prior to joining HPE, Mirabelli served as a senior executive at Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). She was Vice President of Implementation for HCA’s Revenue Cycle Shared Services (now Parallon Business Solutions), and subsequently Vice President and Chief Program Officer in the Clinical Services Group. At HCA, Mirabelli managed an extensive health IT portfolio and built a team of more than 200 health IT professionals.
Earlier in her career, Mirabelli was Senior Manager and Vice President of the Health Provider and Managed Care Practice at Ernst & Young (now Capgemini). She started her healthcare management career as Director of Occupational Therapy at Christ Hospital and Medical Center, Oak Lawn, IL, which is now Advocate Christ Medical Center, part of Advocate Health Care.
She holds a master’s degree in management from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
McKesson and Change Healthcare to form new HIT company
McKesson Corporation and Change Healthcare Holdings announced the creation of a new healthcare information technology (HIT) company. The entity will combine substantially all of Change Healthcare’s business and the majority of McKesson Technology Solutions (MTS) into a new company.
The new organization brings together MTS and Change Healthcare with an aim to deliver a broad portfolio of solutions to lower healthcare costs, improve patient access and outcomes, and make it simpler for payers, providers, and consumers to manage the transition to value-based care.
McKesson will own approximately 70 percent of the new company, with the remaining equity stake held by Change Healthcare stockholders – which include Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman.
McKesson and Change Healthcare stockholders will jointly govern the new company.
3M introduces 360 Encompass MD – Patient Insights Suite
3M Health Information Systems introduced the 3M 360 Encompass MD – Patient Insights Suite, the latest addition to its system of physician workflow and analytic tools for value-based care success. The new software suite aggregates EHR and claims data across all patient encounters, and risk adjusts the data to build an accurate, longitudinal view of a patient’s health condition.
Medicare and commercial payers use Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs) and other risk-adjustment methodologies to analyze and classify the health condition of patients across an entire year’s worth of patient encounters. To help providers analyze, document, code, and report data that promotes accurate HCC assignment, Patient Insights provides a platform that enables a shared, interoperable workflow within a medical community and includes advanced revenue cycle applications that:
- Identify patients with missing HCCs;
- Offer HCC-based diagnosis guidance to physicians in any care setting;
- Coordinate and communicate the health condition of the patient to the entire care team; and
- Understand HCC risk factors in the context of different patient populations.
More than 150 healthcare organizations adopt best practices for patient financial communications at HFMA
As of June 2016, more than 150 hospitals and clinics had formally adopted the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s Patient Financial Communications Best Practices, demonstrating their commitment to creating a positive financial experience for patients. The announcement was made during HFMA’s annual conference in Las Vegas.
Developed in 2013, the HFMA Best Practices are designed to address the industry-wide call for better communication about billing, payment, and financial responsibility between patients and healthcare organizations.
“Adopting the best practices promotes trust and helps prevent misunderstandings between patients and healthcare providers,” said HFMA President and CEO Joseph J. Fifer, FHFMA, CPA. “In a time when patients are paying more out of pocket for their healthcare, clear communication about financial matters is crucial. We encourage all provider organizations to seek Adopter recognition.”
Many of the 85 hospitals and 68 clinics that have attained Adopter status to date are members of nine healthcare systems:
- Carolinas HealthCare, Charlotte, NC;
- Duke University Health System, Durham, NC;
- Essentia Health, Duluth, MN;
- Geisinger Health System, Danville, PA;
- Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, UT;
- Novant Health, Winston-Salem, NC;
- St. Luke’s Health System, Kansas City, MO;
- The Metro Health System of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH; and
- UAB Medicine, Birmingham, AL.
In addition, Henry County Health Center, Mount Pleasant, IA, a critical access hospital, and Maury Regional Medical Center, Columbia, TN, have been recognized as Adopters.
To achieve Adopter recognition, organizations attest that they have well-established processes in place to help patients understand their health insurance coverage and their out-of-pocket expenses.
