Fall 2018 Newsletter

In this edition of UHIN’s bi-monthly newsletter, you’ll find helpful tips, the latest from Standards, what’s happening around the community, the newest offerings from UHIN, and much more! If you have a comment or if there is a topic you would like to see us cover in an upcoming issue, please email us at communications@uhin.org.

 

Join Us at The Annual UHIN HIT Conference!

 

UHIN’S ANNUAL HIT CONFERENCE –PATIENT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

WHEN: OCTOBER 11, 2018

START TIME: 7:30 a.m. – Registration and Light Breakfast

END TIME: 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: SLCC – Miller Campus in Sandy

FEATURING:

  • -Governor Spencer Cox
  • -Ryan Howells, CARIN Alliance
  • -Joe Miner, Executive Director, UDOH
  • -Expert panel on opioid crisis
  • -The future of HIE and Utah
  • -And much more!

For more information and to register visit:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-annual-uhin-hit-conference-tickets-48897201847

 

The Training Tip

Patient Account Numbers are an often-underutilized resource for keeping track of claims and responses. UHIN’s Corporate Trainer will pull from over 9 years of experience working with Patient Account Numbers to help you improve your workflow.

Each claim includes a Patient Account Number, which is a required field used for tracking (it is in box 26 for Professional claims, box 3 for Institutional claims). If you don’t have software that automatically sets this value, you will be asked to set the Patient Account Number when you enter the claim. As you decide on a format, consider the following:

  • -You can change the format and the specific numbers/letters at any time. You don’t have to continue with a format or number if something else would work better.
  • -You can use any combination of numbers and letters; just avoid spaces and punctuation of all kinds.
  • -If you have few patients and only a few claims for those patients, you might be able to proceed with a static number for each patient. This means the same patient would always have the same Patient Account Number. However, if your volume of patients or claims increases, you may have trouble distinguishing between different claims for the same patient.
  • -If your volume is too high to use a static number, look for ways to make the number different for each claim. This will allow you more flexibility and precision when tracking your claims. It will also make troubleshooting faster and easier if you call into a clearinghouse or payer for help. Some examples of claim-specific formats are below:
  • -Patient “Smith,” for dates of service in May 2018: SMITH0518
  • -Patient “Smith,” who has been assigned the number 001, for dates of service in May 2018: 0010518
  • -Patient “Smith,” for the 12thclaim of the year: SMITH12
  • -Patient “Smith,” for a correction to claim number 12: SMITH12CR

Having good tracking numbers will make your life easier when you are looking for claim statuses when you need to troubleshoot a transaction, and when (or if) you need to distinguish between original and resubmitted claims.

 

UHIN Continues to Add Connections

Locally:

The four clinics within the Utah Navajo Health System are now sending transcription notes to the CHIE. These newest data sources are community health clinics, providing comprehensive healthcare services to the individuals they serve.

With support from the various native organization and governmental entities, the Utah Navajo Health System was created in 2000 to serve the medical and dental needs for rural communities in southeastern Utah. The four clinics include Blanding Family Practice, Montezuma Creek Community Health Center, Monument Valley Community Health Center, and Navajo Mountain Community Health Center.

Regionally:

St. James Healthcare and Holy Rosary Healthcare in Montana are both sending Admission / Discharge / Transfer (ADT) notifications to the CHIE.

St. James Hospital System – Located in Butte, Montana, St. James was founded in 1881 by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth (SCL Health). Along with a 67-bed hospital, St. James also offers a variety of other services, including 24-hour emergency services, a labor, and delivery unit, cardiac services, oncology services, and an orthopedic center.

Holy Rosary – Serving an 11-county region of eastern Montana, Holy Rosary is located in Miles City. The hospital, founded in 1910, also offers cancer care, critical care and emergency/trauma services, family wellness, a Level II neonatal care unit, orthopedics, radiology, sports medicine, therapy and rehab services, women’s health services and more. It is also part of SCL Health.

Nationally:

Reliance eHealth Collaborative, the health information exchange (HIE) in Oregon, and UHIN are now connected. This is the newest connection advancing Patient-Centered Data Home (PCDH), the ongoing effort to allow HIEs across the nation to exchange important patient data. PCDH is an initiative of the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC)  aiming to provide seamless delivery of patient health information across state lines and across health systems. Through PCDH, when a patient in any of the participating HIEs’ databases experiences a medical encounter in any of the other participating HIEs’ areas of operation, the patient’s participating primary care provider receives an ADT notification.

Therefore, the Reliance-UHIN connection allows Utahns experiencing a medical encounter in one of the areas Reliance serves to have their primary care physician alerted with an ADT notification. The reverse is also true for Oregonians – and those California and Washington patients living in Reliance’s coverage area – who experience medical encounters in Utah or any of the other participating HIEs.

Located in Medford, Oregon, Reliance was founded in 2011 as a community collaboration between healthcare providers, hospitals, public health agencies, clinics, and other healthcare stakeholders. Today Reliance serves the people of Oregon, as well as counties in southern Washington and northern California.

With the addition of Reliance, UHIN is now connected to HIEs or hospital systems in 18 additional states across the country either directly or through PCDH implementation hubs. UHIN is connected to HIEs serving the people of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington, as well as hospital systems in Montana and Wyoming which do not yet have HIEs. Additionally, UHIN is in the process of connecting with several other states, including Alaska, Iowa, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Texas.

Along with these connections, over 500 hospitals, clinics, labs, long-term post-acute care facilities, and emergency services also contribute data to the CHIE – including all the hospitals in the four largest systems in Utah. For a full listing of the CHIE’s data sources, visit https://uhin.org/the-chies-data-sources/.

You can learn more about SHIEC’s PCDH initiative here.

 

Security Tip

Did you know that according to a survey conducted by The Harris Poll just about half of Americans (49%) are extremely or very concerned about the security of their healthcare data? And there’s a good reason for that concern. A study by the Ponemon Institute and IBM discovered that, on average, a healthcare data breach is worth $408 per record! That’s almost twice the $206 per record cost of a financial data breach. Moreover, companies lost $4.2 million annually on lost business after a breach.

One important step that organizations can take to help protect healthcare information is to encrypt data when it is at rest and in transit. “In transit” is when data is moving from one location to another, such as from one network to another network, or from a local storage device to a cloud device. “At rest” is when data is not actively moving.

When data is encrypted it is far more difficult – hopefully impossible – for it to be deciphered by attackers. All of the data at UHIN is always encrypted – in transit and at rest. Additionally, when data is sent to UHIN it is also always encrypted in transit and at rest!

If you’re looking for a data encryption service, there are many available offering the most up-to-date algorithms. When considering an encryption vendor ask if they:

  • -Can encrypt text, folders, and files
  • -Will automatically encrypt files that are attached to emails and other times during transit
  • -Include encrypted storage
  • -Use multiple numbers of algorithms
  • -Have healthcare-specific experience

Additionally, data security experts suggest encryption be supplemented with other security measures such as:

  • -Two-factor authentication for logging into systems
  • -Frequent security training for employees
  • -Regular audits of who is accessing the data
  • -Remote removal of data from mobile devices capabilities

To learn more, visit https://digitalguardian.com/blog/data-protection-data-in-transit-vs-data-at-rest.

 

New to the CHIE Clinical Portal? Just Need Some Helpful Hints?

UHIN has added a great resource for those members starting off with the CHIE Clinical Portal or those who just need some helpful hints – a new training video. The video covers a wide range of topics including how to access the CHIE Clinical Portal, and how to search for a patient’s records.

You can view the video at https://docs.uhin.org/chie-clinical-portal-training-video/. You’ll also find more UHIN training videos, on a plethora of topics, at https://docs.uhin.org/.

News from the Community – Call for Nominations

Applications for the 2018 Outpatient Practice Quality Awards are now open. Sponsored by HealthInsight Utah, the awards aim to promote excellence in health care. You can learn more about the award or nominate someone here.

What’s New at UHIN? More Easy-to-Use Features!

MORE CONVENIENT ELIGIBILITY PATIENT SNAPSHOT

UHIN’s time-saving and cost-effective electronic eligibility tool is more convenient than ever! Our enhanced Patient Snapshot is now found in a dual pane screen – conveniently allowing you to view important patient information without needing to scroll down the page. Along with subscriber and plan information, you can now easily see Co-Pay Information.

ENVIRONMENT SWITCH in the DESKTOP VERSION OF UHIN’S FILE TOOL

The desktop version of UHIN’s File Tool now allows you to switch between the test environment (UAT) and Production environment. This means you can now conveniently test changes in your system with payers as needed. You can find the Environment Switch on the top left corner of your screen.

For more information about the Eligibility or File tools, please contact UHIN’s Customer Service at customerservice@uhin.org.

 

In the News

UHIN’s Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Dr. Matt Hoffman, and our Director of Operations, Cody Johansen, recently published a paper focusing on workflow changes that help with patient matching in poison control. It was published with our partners from Intermountain Healthcare and the University of Utah in Applied Clinical Informatics. You can read the paper here.

In other news, HIEs can play an important role in accelerating interoperability. You can read more about it in HIT Data Management.

Standards – The Latest from X12

Earlier this summer, members of UHIN’s staff joined hundreds of other experts from around the country at the X12 workgroup meeting. Here are some of the key takeaways important to you.

  • -X12 has been developing a new streamlined process for creating and approving content for the standards and implementation guides. This new process is now in effect for new work.

Additionally, they will be moving to annual TR publications, which are updates to the currently implemented versions. Although the decision has been made, it will take a while to implement the change and will not take effect until after the 7030 version is completed.

  • -The National Committee on Vital Health Statistics (NCVHS) is working on a predictability roadmap to help determine how the industry can move forward with a faster and more streamlined process for developing, voting, and implementing updates and standards.

Other news from the NCVHS:

  • -During the NCVHS CIO Forum update, the discussion highlighted one way to potentially increase the speed of version releases: moving the transactions into the new versions in phases rather than waiting for all the versions to be approved.
  • -A healthy debate ensued about how much faster and more flexible the workgroup should be when the industry may struggle to keep up with a faster pace. The workgroup clearly still needs a degree of certainty that the proposed solutions will actually address the current problems.
  • -The 835 group is working on guidance for the industry regarding how to use CARCs and RARCs together appropriately. More information will follow as the guidance is formalized.
  • -National Uniform Billing Committee / National Uniform Claim Committee (NUBC/NUCC )
  • -Next release of the taxonomy code was set for July 1.
  • -Medicare prospective payment final rule resulted in some coding changes.
  • -The 270 / 271 (eligibility transactions) public comment period began July 16 and will run for 120 days. UHIN has convened a work group to review the proposed changes. If you have comments you would like to submit or are interested in joining the workgroup, please contact Sara Vandermolen at education@uhin.org. Please note, all comments must be submitted to the workgroup by November 1st.
  • -In 7030 (837), there will most likely be a change in the usage for the D8 and RD8 qualifiers. In 5010, it was allowed to have a date range with the RD8 qualifier but have the same date in both the “to” and “from” fields. This will be clarified so that the RD8 qualifier can only be used if the fields contain different dates. Otherwise, the single date should be listed as a single date with a D8 qualifier.
  • -The CN1 segment was originally added to the HIPAA guides because there wasn’t the bandwidth at the time to create a separate guide/standard just for post-adjudicated claims. Now that the PACDR guides are fully developed, they are removing the CN1 transaction from the HIPAA guides and advising that those sending encounter claims base their usage on the PACDR guides.

It’s important to remember that the above 837 and CN1 information is based on the current iteration of the 7030 implementation guides. Until these implementations are finalized, additional changes can still occur. More information will follow as the 7030 guides are finalized.

Another CHIE Success Story

By Amber Mackay

“Alliance House, Inc., helps adults with severe and persistent mental illness complete their educational goals, develop important work skills in order to return to productive employment and, when needed, find secure and affordable housing. Our funding is based on how well we assist our members by reducing hospitalizations. CHIE Alerts provide the important details we need to proactively work to prevent hospitalizations and readmissions. Additionally, CHIE Alerts provide the much-needed support in grant writing by supplying the numbers necessary for tracking.

We also have a large wellness focus, and CHIE Alerts offer the details needed to track success – whether it is for mental or physical wellness – and they provide the necessary information to assist in the education of our patient base.

Alliance House is a nonprofit that has existed for 31 years. An important part of why our business model is successful is the information the CHIE Alerts provide us. The CHIE Alerts were our first way to benchmark progress by offering essential data. Our board of directors loves seeing the success CHIE Alerts have brought to our group. “

UHIN Honored with SHIEC Achievement Award

Earlier this month at the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC) Annual Conference, UHIN received the first-ever SHIEC Achievement Award for Advocacy and Governmental Relations. The award recognized UHIN’s successful completion of its 2015-2017 Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) grant to advance interoperability. As part of the ONC grant, UHIN and its various community partners worked to increase interoperability to previously underserved populations including rural communities, poison control, long-term post-acute care facilities, emergency services, children and youth with special healthcare needs, and patients through an aggregated patient portal.

What’s on Your Correspondent’s Mind? Patient Engagement.

According to Medical Economics, patient engagement is a top priority of 70% of providers. But your intrepid correspondent’s experience hasn’t been very engaging. With a mixture of an A-type personality and a charming penchant for self-preservation, he has always been remarkably good at making and keeping routine medical appointments. The same is not true for scheduling follow-up tests three months later – even when his primary care physician sends a reminder letter. As we quickly approach 2019, a letter may be quaint communication, but clearly ineffective. Yet according to a Healthcare IT News, patients connected with their provider offices via an online portal – like UHIN’s MYONECHART – are significantly more likely to get preventative tests and screenings. Your correspondent is far more likely to act on an email or text than he is a letter. And Health IT Outcomes says more than 50% of Americans agree with him. If you want to engage with him, you can reach him at communications@uhin.org.