Last year, we posted a blog to discuss how the right EHR software can and should reduce physician and staff burnout. The world has changed a lot since then, needless to say. However, burnout among healthcare providers is still a very serious issue. According to a 2020 Medscape report on Physician Suicide & Burnout, 42 percent of responding physicians reported feelings of burnout. While this is a 4 percent overall drop from five years ago, it is still a fairly high amount. Of the physicians who participated, the highest levels of burnout were seen among specialty providers.

In a recent blog, we discussed the new CMS proposed rules intended to make permanent many of the telehealth flexibilities initiated in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Since that time, two additional and very significant pieces of telehealth legislation have been introduced. First, on July 16, 2020, a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced the Protecting Access to Post-COVID-19 Telehealth Act to the U.S. House of Representatives. The very next day, July 17, Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) introduced the Equal Access to Care Act to the U.S. Senate.

At the close of June 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a new proposed rule that would make some of the recent flexibilities for telehealth permanent. Many of these changes are already in place, though temporarily for now, in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. If finalized, this rule would make several of these new telehealth flexibilities permanent. This blog will provide you with a summary of the proposed rule so that you can stay informed on what it could mean for you and your practice.

Independence Day is upon us once again. However, the world is a far different place than it was when last we celebrated our most popular summer holiday. Americans have not celebrated the Fourth of July during a pandemic since way back in 1918. Seeing as how it’s been over a century since we have needed to do this, and that none of us were even alive the last time it happened, it’s hard to know what we should (and should not) be doing. That’s why we figured it might be a good idea to offer our readers this blog with tips on how to (safely) celebrate Independence Day during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

The last few months have been quite a roller coaster ride, to say the least. And despite what some had hoped in recent weeks, it looks like the wild ride of COVID-19 is not going to be over any time soon. Not by a longshot. Over 21 states have already reported spikes in the number of infections, with the highest surges in California, Texas and Florida. In response, earlier this week Governor Greg Abbott of Texas issued an executive order to suspend elective surgeries in order to increase hospital bed capacity. Other states may soon have to do the same.

In an effort to provide healthcare professionals with a better understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted specialty practices, as well as help them identify ways to expedite recovery, Nextech recently published a Practice Insights Report. This report is a compilation of both survey responses from over 547 participants and analytics data from 1500 practices from multiple specialties, including ophthalmology, plastic surgery, dermatology and orthopedics. To give our readers an insightful picture of the current state of specialty practices, we have chosen to publish some of this report’s key findings in this blog.

If the first few months of 2020 taught healthcare professionals anything, it’s that they were not nearly as well prepared to handle unexpected crises as they probably thought they were. With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, a serious economic crisis, a global increase in civil unrest, extreme weather from climate change, murder hornets in the U.S. and now cannibal rats devouring each other in large cities (because that might as well happen too, right?), it seems unexpected risks are coming from new directions almost daily.

In a recent blog article, we took a close look at the future of telehealth in a post-COVID-19 world. While many would agree that telehealth is now here to stay and will continue to be an option expected by patients long after the pandemic has ended, the type of telehealth solutions providers choose to employ can have a serious impact on how patients respond. In the initial rush to provide patients with telehealth options, some providers implemented solutions that were riddled with security flaws, not to mention HIPAA noncompliant and unintegrated with their EHR and Practice Management.