As of June 22, 2023, New York state hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers are among the New York Article 28 facilities that must file Health Equity Impact Assessment documentation when submitting a Certificate of Need application. The goal of this change is to “provide information on whether a proposed project impacts the delivery of or access to services for the service area, particularly medically underserved groups,” according to the New York State Department of Health . To help you better understand the CON HEIA requirement and its impact, we put together five fast facts to get you up to speed and ready to tackle the new requirement. Multiple facilities are subject to the new requirement Under the new requirement, the following New York state Article 28 facilities must complete an HEIA requirement criteria form to determine whether they are subject to the new equity assessment: hospitals; ambulatory surgery centers; nursing homes; select diagnostic and treatment centers; and mi...

The Making Care Primary model presents a unique new opportunity for practices to deliver advanced primary care over 10.5 years. As a primary care provider, you may be wondering whether you should take on the risk and how you’ll manage the program requirements, especially if you’ve never participated in a value-based care model before. In this blog, we’ll cover four noteworthy model benefits you may not have considered. These model design elements aim to reduce historic participation barriers and provide an on-ramp for primary care practices to transition to value-based care.   Benefit #1: New structure that encourages participation Unlike other alternative payment models, MCP aims to reduce financial exposure and some of the upfront infrastructure challenges for primary care practices with no or limited value-based care experience. CMS created these flexibilities to encourage more primary care clinicians to participate, especially small, independent, rural and safety net organizat...

In the last three years, market disrupters in healthcare have increased their activity and deepened their presence. Although they bring about change, not all market disrupters are negative. Using the strategies discussed in Market Disruption: Threat or Opportunity , we’ll walk you through nine tactics to help you leverage disrupters. What are market disrupters? Market disrupters are defined as any person, product or idea that radically and permanently changes the way an industry operates, according to Western Governors University . Healthcare market disrupters use multiple strategies to address challenges like physician burnout, patient satisfaction and electronic health record shortcomings. While not all disrupter solutions succeed, new care models and technology-enabled value-based care platforms have gained traction. Currently, hospitals and health systems are tailoring their strategies to reflect: disrupters’ prime targets; current service strength and diversity; and local market d...

This October 100% of Q1 2023 data is due to the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System of New York State. Whether you receive a Statement of Deficiency or not, you may be wondering if there are better ways to manage SPARCS data changes. It’s not uncommon for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to experience challenges with SPARCS submissions, specifically with data updates and staying compliant. Even the most experienced, full-time SPARCS coordinator can have difficulties keeping up.                                                            In this blog, we’ll outline how SPARCS requirements can change, submission error consequences and solutions to overcome these challenges. Bef...

Multiple organizations have prioritized provider health equity requirements — from new CMS priorities in their Framework for Health Equity to accreditation standards from The Joint Commission. NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation is one of its newest programs . Introduced in 2021, HEA expands accreditation from payers to multiple stakeholders including medical practices and health systems. A second NCQA accreditation, Health Equity Accreditation Plus, takes practices further into the social drivers of health and community partnerships. With so many existing demands, it’s natural for a medical practice to ask: Why should we pursue HEA or HEA+, and what are the benefits for our patients and practice? In this blog, we’ll cover three ways NCQA accreditation helps medical practices improve health equity and achieve full practice transformation under this new model of care. How NCQA Health Equity Accreditation can reduce health disparities 1. Increase patient awareness NCQA’s HEA standards hel...