News 10/21/22

Top News

Advocate Aurora Health joins other large health systems in notifying millions of patients that their information was potentially exposed via the Meta Pixel website user tracker.

AAH says it is notifying all of its 3 million patients that it had installed the tracker on its MyChart and LiveWell patient portals, which gave Facebook advertisers access to their IP address, appointment details, providers, type of appointment, MyChart messages, and insurance information.

AAH says it installed the pixel to evaluate how consumers use its websites, but was not aware of the extent of information that was being collected and sent to third parties. It has removed the tracking tool.

Reader Comments

From Garbanzo: “Re: Unite Us. They may be the SDOH platform giant in terms of business, but not in KLAS reports.” Click to enlarge the graphic above that was sent by this reader, which compares competitors Findhelp and Unite Us in the categories of culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.

From Isthmus: “Re: NH SB 423. The privacy bill was actually supported by Unite Us, voting was unanimous, and the Unite Us contract was placed in moratorium and then ended because it didn’t meet state privacy rules. Testimony is here.”

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Here’s the recording of this week’s webinar, sponsored by Mend, titled “Patient Payment Trends 2022 Learn All The Secrets.”

Announcements and Implementations

Trilliant Health’s excellent annual health economy report makes these points (I interviewed SVP / Chief Research Officer Sanjula Jain, PhD a few months ago):

• The number of commercially insured Americans, who drive most of healthcare’s profits, is declining, and the Medicare-eligible population is growing faster than other cohorts.
• Cancer screening volume is down, making it likely that initial diagnoses will be made in more advanced stages.
• Behavioral health and related medication prescribing are up significantly, but vary by market.
• Hospital inpatient and outpatient volumes have been flat for years even as obesity and chronic disease increases. Digestive surgeries will have the highest growth in almost all markets.
• Telehealth utilization remains high, but is being used significantly less that at its peak by seniors and children and is broadly shifting back to mostly in-person care. Most patients who have used telehealth have done so only once, and the biggest use is for behavioral health. Oversupply will cause telehealth visit prices to keep dropping, possibly to $0 if commercial insurers offer them at no cost.
• Medicare and Medicaid spending and projected increases are unsustainable and Americans have accumulated $140 billion in medical debt.
• Services are rapidly shifting to ambulatory settings. 
• The report observes that “only in healthcare can a monopoly lose money” as even market-controlling hospitals generate negative margins. It also notes that “the paradox of declining demand and rising price defies the laws of economics” as US healthcare prices keep rising as outcomes such as life expectancy keep falling. 

A study finds that use of AI-powered wound imaging and analysis software from Net Health allowed a virtual wound care program to provide quicker access and improved management to remote patients who took photos of their own wounds for specialist review.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions launches MarketView Patient Journey Intelligence, which uses tokenization technology to link de-identified datasets to analyze a patient’s movement through the care continuum.

An AHIMA white paper urges health information professionals to take on roles related to analytics, managing social determinants of health, helping clinicians use EHR information to engage patients, working with the design and management of online tools for value-based care, supporting efforts to roll out digital front doors, and developing AI processes. Interviewees differed on whether health information professionals will work more directly with patients.

Meditech launches Expanse Population Insight, which uses claims and EHR data from the Innovaccer Data Platform to provide information about risk, care gaps, and utilization at the point of care.

The joint venture health plan owned by Banner Health and Aetna/CVS Health rolls out “frictionless billing,” which shows patients what the provider billed, what insurance covered, and what they personally owe so they can pay their balance.

Government and Politics

FDA warns that amphetamine-based ADHD drug Adderall is in short supply. Experts question whether the shortage may have been exacerbated by online startups that marketed their prescribing of the drug via virtual virtual encounters that were convenient, inexpensive, and sometimes short on sound medical practice.

Privacy and Security

Analysis by data privacy firm Lokker finds that of 5,000 websites of hospitals and healthcare services providers, 40% use trackers from Facebook, 13% from Microsoft, 8% from Twitter, 6% from Pinterest, and 5% of TikTok. The company says that the web browser is the new endpoint to defend, containing privacy risks such as malware, PHI data skimming, and data broker fingerprinting scripts that repeatedly enrich user profiles to the point they can identify a specific website visitor.

A hacker breaches Australia’s insurer, Medibank, and steals 200 gigabytes of data that includes customer medical procedures, diagnoses, addresses, and credit card details.  A hacker group told the company it was interested in negotiating the disposition of the information it took.

Other

The Atlantic says that COVID-19 datasets are no longer reliable for predictive purposes due to (a) uncounted home test results; (b) CDC and stage agencies moving to weekly instead of daily reporting; and (c) and some states ending their reporting entirely. It says that hospital-reported data is sound, but it lags cases and doesn’t necessarily reflect transmission rates. Wastewater surveillance is consistent and free of biases for trend analysis. The authors also recommend conducting local population surveys to understand how many people are testing positive and what demographic groups they are in.

A medical building’s janitor is charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon when a co-worker’s hidden camera captures him urinating into the water bottle she had left on her desk. The woman, who was trying to figure out why her water always tasted and looked funny, says that she caught herpes from the contact. Eleven of her co-workers have come forward with similar complaints. The janitor admitted to police that he had repeatedly peed into employee water bottles and the building’s five-gallon dispenser and admits to doing the same thing at other buildings where he was assigned by his janitorial services employer.

A woman who visited the ED of John Muir Medical Center fearing fentanyl poisoning sues the health system for for billing her $6,100 for a drug screening test for which it accepts a $62 payment from Medicare. The woman says the ED wouldn’t see her until she signed a contract that required her to pay “regular rates and terms” and didn’t run the urine screen until after her three-hour visit, for which the health system wants her to pay $7,100 on top of the $6,000 that insurance has already paid.

Sponsor Updates

• Netsmart sponsors MHMR Tarrant’s 15th Annual Opening Doors Dinner to raise money for specialized therapies, transitional living, and peer support programs in the Fort Worth, TX area.
• Healthcare Triangle publishes a new whitepaper, “Moving Your Healthcare Digital Strategy from Theory to Execution: CHIME’22 Survey Reveals 3 Insights.”
• Nordic Consulting is recognized with best employer awards from Comparably and Madison Magazine.
• Healthcare Growth Partners advises Council Capital and Health Enterprise Partners in their platform investment in Alivia Analytics.
• Clearsense posts a new infographic titled “The ROI of Legacy Data.”
• Impact Advisors will sponsor and present at the 2022 Analytics + CIO: Real-World AI Transforming Healthcare Now Summit November 17-18 in Scottsdale, AZ.
• Intelligent Medical Objects will exhibit at NextGen UGM November 6-9 in Nashville.
• Intrado and Loyal will exhibit at Athenahealth’s Thrive Summit October 24-26 in Austin, TX.
• Konza National Network names Claude Brunson, MD to its Board of Directors.
• Lyniate will host its Connect conference October 24-28 in Frisco, TX.
• Meditech releases a new podcast, “Reimagining the future of healthcare.”

Blog Posts

• How to Educate Multiple Generations on Security Risks and Protocols (Fortified Health Security)
• Where FHIR Currently Stands and the Future Outlook for Interoperability (HealthTech Resources)
• If you build it, they will come (Nordic)
• Free text clinical narratives in healthcare: A multi-language challenge (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Legacy SCL Health (Now Intermountain Healthcare) Reimagines Digital Patient Access (Kyruus)
• Real-World Data: Connecting datasets with unparalleled precision (LexisNexis)
• A Digital Front Door: The Consumer Impact of Patient Access Solutions (Medhost)
• 7 Tips to Make EHR Consolidations Less Stressful (Nordic)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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