Month: September 2025

Whitepaper: 10 Inpatient Coding Strategies Recapturing $2M+ for Hospitals

September 5, 2025

Whitepaper: 10 Inpatient Coding Strategies Recapturing $2M+ for Hospitals

Hospitals are losing up to millions annually from missed coding opportunities – and most leaders don’t even realize it.

Vague documentation, siloed teams and under-resourced coders quietly erode margins, delay reimbursement and trigger denials.

Download the 10 strategies hospitals are using now to protect revenue, without overhauling their EHRs or adding staff.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How hospitals are boosting average case revenue by up to $2,500
  • The case for aligning coders to high-dollar service lines, and
  • When to use AI vs. automation, and how to make both work

Click Here to Download Whitepaper

Register Now! MHA’s 103rd Annual Convention, November 5-7

September 5, 2025

Register Now! MHA’s 103rd Annual Convention, November 5-7

For #MoHospitals, people are always at the center. From the patients and communities hospitals serve, to the staff that make care possible, the mission is always people-focused.

This year’s convention will emphasize how MHA priorities and performance are linked to the organizations’ passion and purpose, and how through these values we deliver on our service-oriented missions. As we frame the challenging and evolving health care environment, we’ll be reminded about why the work matters – People: The Point of Care.

A thoughtfully crafted agenda will highlight solutions shaping the future of care.

  • Behavioral Health and Boarding: Investments, partnerships and pathways that deliver results.
  • Workforce Culture and Safety: How engagement and violence prevention strengthen staff and outcomes.
  • Technology and AI: Streamlining processes and using data to level the field with payers.
  • Quality and Patient Safety: Building cultures that improve care and support the workforce.

Registration Types

Convention registration is required to attend all meetings and convention functions except for standalone Celebration of Achievement Awards Dinner tickets. Registration includes select meals and networking events. When registering, please indicate if you plan to attend these events.

Convention registration will guide you through to your correct registration category, but if you have any questions, please contact Samantha Schwartz, MHA’s event coordinator at sschwartz@mohospitals.org or 573 644-7449.

Cost:

  • MHA Member – $500
  • Nonmember – $600
  • State Agency Employees – $250
  • Guest – $250

When: November 5 – 7

Where: St. Charles Convention Center, St. Charles, MO

Click Here to Learn More and Register

Beyond Ambient: 5 Must-Reads on the Next Wave of Clinical AI

September 5, 2025

Beyond Ambient: 5 Must-Reads on the Next Wave of Clinical AI

From ambient listening to active assistance, clinical AI is rapidly reshaping care delivery. But documentation burden, burnout and retention challenges persist.

Now, a more active wave of AI tools is emerging – ones that assist with drafting, answering clinical questions and supporting tasks in real time. These agentic tools are changing how CIOs, CMIOs and CEOs think about care delivery.

Don’t miss these 5 must-reads on what’s working, what’s not and where leading systems are headed next.

Download to explore:

  • How Rush University System for Health reduced clinician burnout by 74% and increased patient access through ambient AI adoption,
  • What health systems like Yale New Haven and Intermountain Health are prioritizing when scaling AI: security, data readiness, and centralized funding, and
  • Where clinical AI is headed next – from real-time documentation and predictive insights to fully integrated support across EHR workflows.

Click Here to Download the 5 Must-Reads

Webinar: AI for Healthcare CX: Strategies and Playbooks for Real Transformation, September 16

September 5, 2025

Webinar: AI for Healthcare CX: Strategies and Playbooks for Real Transformation, September 16

Patients are frustrated. Health systems are stretched thin. Regulatory requirements are changing. For many organizations, improving healthcare consumer experience feels impossible under current conditions.

But leaders from Johns Hopkins Healthcare System, Hummingbird Health, and Talkdesk are proving transformation is possible – using AI and automation not to replace people, but to support them.

During this live virtual session, John Hopkins Health System’s VP of Clinical Systems will discuss how they’re modernizing patient access and streamlining the healthcare consumer experience, delivering better outcomes with greater efficiency.

Learnings Include:

  • How to use AI and automation to unify disconnected access points and reduce friction,
  • What regulatory shifts mean for digital strategy and how health systems can adapt, and
  • Real lessons from Johns Hopkins on aligning clinical operations with consumer experience goals.

Cost: Free

When: Tuesday, September 16, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Webinar: More Revenue with Automated Appeals: How RCM Teams are Deploying Appeals AI, September 15

September 5, 2025

Webinar: More Revenue with Automated Appeals: How RCM Teams are Deploying Appeals AI, September 15

Claims denials are on the rise and already costing nearly $20 billion per year. And, as payers continue to integrate AI into denial processes, revenue cycle teams are turning to generative AI to respond to denials faster and smarter.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how billing companies and providers are using AI to draft denial-specific appeal letters in seconds.

Presenters will walk through real-world use cases, operational frameworks and the guardrails needed to deploy these tools safely – keeping humans in control while boosting efficiency and success.

Key Takeaways:

  • How generative AI builds claim-specific appeals,
  • The key metrics your teams need to track, and
  • Safeguards to ensure compliance and mitigate bias

Cost: Free

When: Monday, September 15, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Webinar: Optimizing Epic Community Connect – Strategies for Success from Both Sides of the Connection, September 25

September 5, 2025

Webinar: Optimizing Epic Community Connect – Strategies for Success from Both Sides of the Connection, September 25

For many health systems, Epic Community Connect seems like a win-win: access for affiliates, scale for hosts. But all too often, key issues are overlooked – from governance and readiness to role clarity and long-term support.

The result? Friction, confusion and missed opportunities on both sides of the partnership.

In this webinar, Epic experts share what works – and what doesn’t – based on firsthand experience supporting Community Connect programs nationwide. Whether you’re a host system or an incoming site, this session will help you avoid common pitfalls and build a stronger Epic ecosystem.

Learnings Include:

  • Questions to ask before signing a contract and how to set expectations early,
  • The role of governance, communication and clinical readiness in long-term success, and
  • Lessons from real rollouts – what high performing programs have in common.

Cost: Free

When: Thursday, September 25, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Webinar: Breaking Barriers to Better Patient Experiences: Doing More with Less in Healthcare Marketing, September 23

September 5, 2025

Webinar: Breaking Barriers to Better Patient Experiences: Doing More with Less in Healthcare Marketing, September 23

Healthcare marketers and digital leaders face rising patient expectations, evolving AI-driven search behavior and constant pressure to deliver results with fewer resources.

In this session, leaders from Banner Health, NorthBay Health and Mount Sinai Health System will share how they have broken down silos, aligned teams and applied marketing agility to deliver measurable wins. They will explore how smarter search strategies, AI readiness and cross-functional collaboration are helping systems book more appointments, reduce costs and improve the patient journey.

Attendees will leave with practical ideas they can put to work immediately.

Key Learnings:

  • Understand how changes in search behavior and AI are reshaping patient engagement strategies,
  • Identify common organizational barriers to marketing agility and how to overcome them,
  • Learn how to align IT, marketing, and access teams to drive measurable outcomes, and
  • Discover practical ways to optimize content and metadata for better search performance and AI readiness.

Cost: Free

When: Tuesday, September 23, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Cancer Survivorship ECHO, Begins September 12

September 5, 2025

Cancer Survivorship ECHO, Begins September 12

The Cancer Survivorship ECHO enhances the capacity of rural primary care teams and community oncologists to deliver high-quality, coordinated, and patient-centered care to individuals who have completed primary treatment for cancer, by increasing knowledge, confidence, and collaboration in survivorship care planning, monitoring, and long-term support.

Primary care professionals, social workers, psychologists, behavioral health clinicians, nurses, and other community healthcare professionals are invited to join a multidisciplinary team of experts and specialists for virtual, collaborative learning sessions every 2nd and 4th Friday of the month from 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Case-based learning sessions for Cancer Survivorship ECHO will address such topics as:

  • Why Cancer Survivorship ECHO?
  • Cancer survivorship clinical practice guidelines
  • Immunizations
  • Continued lab monitoring and imaging
  • Healthy eating: finding nutritional balance in survivorship
  • Clinically appropriate screenings in the survivor of cancer
  • Smoking cessation in individuals with cancer
  • Modern therapeutics and toxicities
  • Cardiovascular health post cancer
  • Fitness strategies
  • Fertility and sexual health
  • Supplement use and nutrition misinformation
  • Signs and symptoms of cancer recurrence
  • Side effects
  • Support group and resources

What Does this ECHO Offer?

  • FREE continuing education for qualifying professionals,
  • Collaboration, support, and ongoing learning from specialists and experts across the state, and
  • NO COST to participating sites or individuals

Click Here to Learn More and Register

Targeted Technical Assistance for Rural Hospitals Program (TTAP), Apply by September 30

September 4, 2025

Targeted Technical Assistance for Rural Hospitals Program (TTAP), Apply by September 30

The Targeted Technical Assistance for Rural Hospitals Program (TTAP) is not a grant program for hospitals. Instead, participating hospitals receive technical assistance at no cost.

All applicants are eligible to participate in webinars and training events focused on best practices for financial and operational improvement held through the grant period.

TTAP is a federally funded initiative that offers comprehensive technical assistance to rural hospitals to address:

  • financial and operational challenges and
  • maintain essential health services for their communities.

During their tenure in the program, hospitals receive comprehensive technical assistance in:

  • financial and operational assessment,
  • financial sustainability planning,
  • strategy implementation,
  • monitoring, and
  • evaluation.

The ideal applicant organization is a rural hospital or critical access hospital that demonstrates a need and readiness for targeted technical assistance aimed at supporting financial and operational stability.

Participating hospitals must be committed to meaningfully engaging in all aspects of the program. While all eligible rural hospitals and critical access hospitals are encouraged to apply, this program is designed to best support organizations that are:

  1. Not currently or have not previously received similar technical assistance; and
  2. Do not have readily available access to resources to support financial and operational viability.

Online applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. However, an annual application deadline is announced for each new project year. The deadline for the 2025–2026 project year is Tuesday, September 30, 2025, at 11:59 pm. Once the application deadline has passed, organizations may begin applying for participation in the next project year. Applicants who are not selected may be considered for future cohorts.​

Apply by September 30

Click Here to Learn More and Apply

CMS Proposes Updates to Medicare and Medicaid Programs, Comment by September 15

September 4, 2025

CMS Proposes Updates to Medicare and Medicaid Programs, Comment by September 15

This proposed rule would revise the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and the Medicare Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) payment system for calendar year 2026 based on continuing experience with these systems.

Included are descriptions of the changes to the amounts and factors used to determine the payment rates for Medicare services paid under the OPPS and those paid under the ASC payment systems.

This proposed rule would also update and refine the requirements for the:

  • Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program,
  • Rural Emergency Hospital Quality Reporting Program,
  • Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting Program,
  • Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating, and
  • Hospitals to make public their standard charge information and enforcement of hospital price transparency.

This rule also contains requests for information on measure concepts regarding:

  • Well-Being and Nutrition for consideration in future years for all three programs (OQR, REHQR, and ASCQR);
  • expanding the method to control for unnecessary increases in the volume of covered OPD services to on-campus clinic visits;
  • software as a service; and
  • adjusting payment under the OPPS for services predominately performed in the ambulatory surgical center or physician office settings.

Click Here to Read Proposed Changes and Updates and Comment by September 15