Month: July 2025

AI’s Next Healthcare Disruption: Transforming the Patient Experience

July 16, 2025

AI’s Next Healthcare Disruption: Transforming the Patient Experience

The next wave of AI is redefining the patient journey, making it digital, dynamic and data driven.

Healthcare leaders face the challenge of interpreting vast amounts of patient data to improve care outcomes. Current methods often fail to capture the full picture, leaving gaps in understanding patient sentiment.

This report explores how leveraging AI alongside traditional measures like HCAHPS can lead to significant improvements in patient experience. Discover how AI helps in uncovering hidden friction and strengthening marketing strategies.

Key takeaways:

  • How AI is reshaping patient experiences beyond clinical settings,
  • The advantages of complementing HCAHPS data with real-time AI insights, and
  • Preparation strategies for an 1aI-driven future in healthcare

Click Here to Access Report

CMS Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model – Apply by July

July 15, 2025

CMS Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model – Apply by July

Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the new Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model. CMS will partner with companies specializing in enhanced technologies to test ways to provide an improved and expedited prior authorization process relative to Original Medicare’s existing processes.

The WISeR Model will test a new process on whether enhanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can expedite the prior authorization processes for select items and services that have been identified as particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse, or inappropriate use.

Companies selected to participate in the model must have clinicians with appropriate expertise to conduct medical reviews and validate coverage determinations. CMS has issued a Request for Applications for companies interested in participating in the WISeR Model.

Additional information is available in the Model Overview Fact Sheet and on the Federal Register.

Click here to Learn More

Click Here to see Request for Applications

Click Here to view Model Overview Fact Sheet

Click Here to go to Federal Register

The Impact of High Hospital Fixed-Cost Ratios on Rural Populations

July 15, 2025

The Impact of High Hospital Fixed-Cost Ratios on Rural Populations

This brief from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis describes the regional variation in Critical Access Hospital (CAH) and Low-Volume Hospital (LVH) status with respect to average fixed-to-total-cost ratios, finding that CAHs tend to have the highest ratios, followed by LVHs. However, the average ratio for each status differs regionally across the United States.

Click Here to Read More

Access and Quality of Mental Health Services in Rural and Urban America

July 15, 2025

Access and Quality of Mental Health Services in Rural and Urban America

Among the key findings in this brief from the University of South Carolina Rural Health Research Center:

  • Digital Divide Exacerbating Access: Both rural and urban Zip Code Tabulation Areas located more than 30 minutes away from the nearest mental health facility have a higher proportion of households without access to essential telecommunication devices.
  • Quality of Rural Mental Health Facilities: Rural facilities generally demonstrate better performance compared to urban facilities in terms of continuity of care measures and lower rates of physical restraint and seclusion usage.

Click Here to Read More

Geographic and Demographic Correlates of Living in Manufactured Homes: Implications for Health

July 15, 2025

Geographic and Demographic Correlates of Living in Manufactured Homes: Implications for Health

Manufactured homes (formerly known as mobile homes) can provide an affordable housing option, especially in places with few other options. However, manufactured homes are associated with poorer health outcomes and are less well equipped to protect their residents from the effects of natural disasters than more permanent housing structures.

This brief from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center examines rates of living in manufactured homes by rural and urban location, as well as rates among rural residents by region and socio-demographic characteristics. It also examines differences in crowded housing, housing quality, and housing cost burden by manufactured vs. more permanent housing structures.

Click Here to Read Brief

Apply for HRSA’s Faculty Loan Repayment Program, Deadline Extended to July 22

July 15, 2025

Apply for HRSA’s Faculty Loan Repayment Program, Deadline Extended to July 22

The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) Bureau of Health Workforce will repay a portion of your health professional student loan in return for serving on the faculty at a health professions school.

Successful applicants will receive up to $40,000 in loan repayment assistance as well as funding to offset the tax burden.

Click Here to Learn More and Apply

Obstetric Care Access Declined in Rural and Urban Hospitals Across US States, 2010-2022

July 15, 2025

Obstetric Care Access Declined in Rural and Urban Hospitals Across US States, 2010-2022

With support from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania found widespread loss of obstetric services across states, especially among rural hospitals, during the 12-year period studied.

By 2022, eight states had more than two-thirds of rural hospitals without obstetric services.

Click Here to Read Full Report

Rural Hospital Stabilization Program (RHSP) – Apply Now to Join the Next Cohort, Deadline August 20

July 15, 2025

Rural Hospital Stabilization Program (RHSP) – Apply Now to Join the Next Cohort, Deadline August 20

The Rural Hospital Stabilization Program (RHSP) is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) and administered by the National Rural Health Resource Center.

The ultimate goal of this program is to strengthen rural health care delivery nationwide. RHSP provides assistance to help hospitals improve financial stability by enhancing or expanding health care services that meet community needs.

Benefits of Participation

  • Improve financial position and increase operational efficiencies,
  • Enhance stability and sustain access to care,
  • Grow services to increase patient volume,
  • Align service to community needs, bolster revenue and reduce bypass, and
  • Enhance community perception of the hospital.

Hospitals participating in the cohort-style program work to identify clinical areas where expansion or addition of services would help to ensure that care is available locally, and develop those service lines to bolster patient volume, optimize service utilization and improve cash flow.

Hospitals that meet program expectations and are selected for participation may receive financial support for operating and equipment costs for service line development and a Community Engagement Champion.

Apply by August 20

Click Here to Learn More and Apply

Whitepaper: How Health Systems are Scaling RPM to Meet Growing Patient Demand

July 11, 2025

Whitepaper: How Health Systems are Scaling RPM to Meet Growing Patient Demand

With an aging population and the growing burden of chronic disease, remote patient monitoring will only become more important in the years to come.

RPM can reduce readmissions, lower costs and improve care continuity – but only when adoption scales.

Catholic Health and others are proving it’s possible, with instances of 90% patient adherence on biometric monitoring. At the University of Chicago Medicine, 6% of postpartum hypertension patients reached control within 6 weeks. MedStar Health reduced hospital readmissions to 60% the national average.

This whitepaper distills strategies from these high-performing systems so clinical nursing and IT leaders can operationalize and scale RPM and achieve similar results.

Inside You’ll Learn:

  • Why most RPM programs fail to scale – and how to course-correct,
  • Tactics to improve care for high-risk postpartum patients – backed by UChicago data, and
  • Referral workflow fixes that double enrollment – as seen at Lee Health.

Click Here to Access this Whitepaper

 

Webinar: Enhancing RCM at the Point of Conversation: Insights from Corewell Health, Riverside, and Dayton Children’s, July 29

July 11, 2025

Webinar: Enhancing RCM at the Point of Conversation: Insights from Corewell Health, Riverside, and Dayton Children’s, July 29

Generative AI for clinical documentation has shown significant promise in reducing administrative workloads, alleviating clinician burnout, and enhancing the patient experience. Yet there remains untapped potential in leveraging patient-clinician conversations to automate critical business functions, particularly across revenue cycle management.

By 2030, the U.S. is projected to face a shortage of nearly 100,00o physicians driven in part by the burden of administrative and billing demands in healthcare (Association of American Medical Colleges). Leading health systems like Corewell Health, Riverside, and Dayton Children’s are already streamlining documentation to build more resilient care and revenue operations.

Takeaways:

  • How ambient AI is helping combat workforce shortages by improving margins and reducing clinician burnout.
  • Lessons learned in driving adoption and proving ROI, and
  • The measurable outcomes health systems are seeing, from improved documentation quality to better patient and financial outcomes.

Cost: Free

When: Tuesday, July 29, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Click Here to Register