Tom Price

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21st Century Cures and the Road Ahead

I’ve been writing fewer posts recently because the trajectory forward for healthcare and healthcare IT seems to be evolving very rapidly.   In just the past week, we’ve had: the American Hospital Association letter suggesting that 21,000 pages of regulations be rolled back including Meaningful Use Stage Three concepts and quality measurement in many care settings, the passage of the 21st Century Cures bill and its many IT related mandates, and the nomination of Tom Price for HHS Secretary  and Seema Verma for CMS administrator...

A New Kind of Doctor's Office Charges a Monthly Fee and Doesn't Take Insurance — and It Could Be the Future of Medicine

Lydia Ramsey | Business Insider | March 19, 2017

Dr. Bryan Hill spent his career working as a pediatrician, teaching at a university, and working at a hospital. But in March 2016, he decided he no longer wanted a boss. He took some time off, then one day he got a call asking if he'd be up for doing a house call for a woman whose son was sick. He agreed, and by the end of that visit, he realized he wanted to treat patients without dealing with any of the insurance requirements. Then he learned about a totally different way to run a doctor's office...

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AHIP Speakers: Soaring Drug Prices Reach Crisis Stage

Ryan Basen | MedPage Today | March 9, 2017

On the same day that President Trump met with Democratic leaders to discuss controlling prescription drug costs, physician advocates and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) debated and vented about drug costs at the America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) National Health Policy Conference. "The system is broken right now," Marilyn Tavenner, AHIP's CEO and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said Wednesday...

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AMA Statement on the Nomination of Rep. Tom Price to be HHS Secretary

Press Release | American Medical Association | November 29, 2016

The American Medical Association strongly supports the nomination of Dr. Tom Price to become the next Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). His service as a physician, state legislator and member of the U.S. Congress provides a depth of experience to lead HHS. Dr. Price has been a leader in the development of health policies to advance patient choice and market-based solutions as well as reduce excessive regulatory burdens that diminish time devoted to patient care and increase costs...

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Community Health Network in Houston Leverages Open Source Tech to Help Victims of Hurricane Harvey

Undaunted by the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in Houston, the Stephen F. Austin Community Health Network (SFA) responded to the crisis by leveraging open source technology to reach out to their patients and victims of the hurricane in areas of Texas that are virtually inaccessible. The Health Network, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) covering Brazoria County, is one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Harvey and currently recovering. Using an advanced cloud-based version of the OpenEMR software, the SFA Community Health Network has been able to treat patients in clinics physically unreachable by their medical providers.

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Congressman Offers 3-Point MU Fix

Tom Sullivan, | Healthcare IT News | June 23, 2014

With $23 billion already spent on incentivizing providers to adopt electronic health records, many in government and industry are wondering whether taxpayers and patients got what they paid for...

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Halamka's Recommendations for Effective Care Management

I recently joined the advisory board of Arcadia Healthcare Solutions, a leading provider of analytics, decision support, and workflow enhancement services. At my first advisory board meeting there was a rich debate about the marketplace for care management and population health tools. I’ve spent years studying such solutions at HIMSS and found most of the products are “compiled in Powerpoint”, which is a very agile programming language, since it’s so easy to change…

HHS announces the availability of $195 million to expand substance abuse and mental health services at health centers nationwide

Press Release | HHS | June 26, 2017

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the availability of $195 million in a new funding opportunity for community health centers to expand access to mental health and substance abuse services focusing on the treatment, prevention and awareness of opioid abuse in all U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia. The awards are expected to be made in September of this year. Health centers that receive an award will use the funds to increase the number of personnel dedicated to mental health and substance abuse services and to leverage health information technology and training to support the expansion of mental health and substance abuse services and their integration into primary care.

HHS Makes Changes to 'Wall of Shame' Breach Reporting Site

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee | Gov Info Security | July 25, 2017

The Department of Health and Human Services has made changes to its website, widely referred to as the "wall of shame," that lists reports of major health data breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. The changes come after complaints from some members of Congress and others that the website unfairly exposes breached organizations to endless public scrutiny because incidents are indefinitely listed on the site...

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HHS Secretary Equates Health IT to ‘Burden’ for Doctors

Billy Mitchell | FedScoop | April 27, 2017

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price advocated Thursday for reducing the burden placed upon physicians and health care providers by the health technology that is otherwise meant to improve care for patients. Speaking at his first Health Datapalooza as the head of HHS, Price said the proliferation of health IT is something that “can have remarkably challenging and sometimes destructive consequences”...

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HHS Secretary: Doctors Should Deal With Patients, Not Computers

Mohana Ravindranath | Next Gov | May 1, 2017

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price says improving health information technology is a key priority for the department. The former Georgia representative spoke at HHS’ annual Health Datapalooza event last week, where he sketched out plans to help physicians do their jobs better by helping improve the technological backbone of hospitals, including electronic medical records...

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How Community Health Centers Support Patient-Centered Care

Sara Heath | Patient Engagement HIT | August 21, 2017

Each year, HHS celebrates Community Health Centers week. It is a time where the agency recognizes the impact community health centers have on patient-centered care and how they promote access to care in vulnerable or medically underserved populations...

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Is The 1.5+ Trillion Dollar HITECH Act a Failure?

Hopefully, the public statements made by President Obama and Vice President Biden will lead to a public debate over the monumental problems that the HITECH Act and proprietary EHR vendors have caused the American people. While the press continues to report the figure of $35 billion as the cost of implementing EHRs, that figure does not tell the entire story. Perhaps the next step is to provide accountability and transparency. That would start with firm numbers regarding the real costs of EHR implementations forced on an unprepared healthcare system by the HITECH Act.

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Obama and Biden Blast EHR Vendors for Data Blocking

As they are winding their terms in office, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden dropped a stink bomb on the health IT industry. Speaking at different events on Friday, January 9th, the President and Vice President both criticized proprietary electronic health record (EHR) vendors as the primary obstacle to the success of their administration’s health care strategy. This is the highest level acknowledgment so far of the serious impact that “lock-in” EHR software vendors are having on America’s medical infrastructure and the ability of physicians to provide medical care.

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ONC’s John Fleming Wants Patients to Have a Single Unified Health record

Evan Sweeney | Fierce Healthcare | June 2, 2017

A senior administrator with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT said he wants patients to have a unified health record that could pull data from various medical providers into a single record. John Fleming, the ONC’s deputy assistant secretary for health technology reform, outlined his vision that would give patients more control of their medical information during the International Summit on the Future of Health Privacy hosted by Georgetown University Law...

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