The Bridge Blog

Updated on May 26, 2021. What is MACRA/MIPS? MACRA (Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act), pays healthcare providers that care for Medicare beneficiaries a variable amount based on the quality of the care they provide. Merit-Based Incentive Payments System (MIPS) is a payment track created under MACRA. It aims to…Read more

Updated on January 1, 2021. Telemedicine is the use of technology for remote patient monitoring and medical consultations. Before COVID-19, some healthcare organizations saw telemedicine software as a logical response to ballooning healthcare expenditures and an ever-increasing physician availability shortage. During the pandemic, it is no longer just an option…Read more

Updated on November 24, 2020. Having a post-visit communication plan can significantly improve patient outcomes by reducing the number of emergency visits, decreasing the hospital readmission rate, and improving chronic disease management. “Patients who effectively used a portal were 2-4% less likely to be hospitalized. Those who engaged with the…Read more

Propelled by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the move towards fee-for-value care delivery models versus fee-for-service, chronic care management services (CCM) have the potential to significantly reduce healthcare spending. Patients who have the education and training they need to manage their chronic illness will incur lower healthcare costs. The overall…Read more

Patient engagement is a necessary element for the achievement of a better quality of care and it is a critical component of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) initiative to focus on the quality of care.  CMS programs like the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, MACRA, are…Read more

Updated on June 5, 2020. Given the growing interest in video conferencing services for communicating with patients online, healthcare organizations often come to Bridge Patient Portal, a patient engagement vendor, with questions about the use of Skype™ for telemedicine, and is Skype™ HIPAA Compliant? Here we will focus on two…Read more

Updated on January 26, 2022 Although texting appointment reminders are allowed under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) due to the fact that “appointment reminders”[¹] are considered part of the treatment of an individual and, therefore, can be made without authorization, new HIPAA privacy rules have recently added more…Read more

By engaging patients and encouraging participation in their healthcare, organizations can ensure a greater number of health goals are met. Of course, patient engagement can be a challenge, but a successful plan starts with a realistic goal. Do you know what percent of patients your organization should initially attempt to…Read more

More and more health organizations are implementing publicly-exposed web technologies containing Protected Health Information (PHI) which are subject to the laws of HIPAA. Common examples of such systems include Electronic Health Record (EHR), web portal, patient portal software, and mhealth solution. When those systems become integrated, PHI must travel from one…Read more

With the MIPS reporting period deadlines just around the corner, we at Bridge Patient Portal are seeing a surge in attention being directed towards the MACRA program as patient portals make up an important part of MIPS scoring. While the MACRA program already began at the start of 2017 many…Read more