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

CMS Proposes Updates to Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Payments, and Other Changes to Part B Payment and Coverage Policies, Comment by September 12

September 4, 2025

CMS Proposes Updates to Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Payments, Comment by September 12

On January 31, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14192 “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,” which states the Administration policy to significantly reduce the private expenditures required to comply with Federal regulations to secure America’s economic prosperity and national security and the highest possible quality of life for each citizen.

CMS is seeking public input on approaches and opportunities to streamline regulations and reduce administrative burdens on providers, suppliers, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders participating in the Medicare program.

This major proposed rule addresses:

  • changes to the physician fee schedule (PFS);
  • other changes to Medicare Part B payment policies to ensure that payment systems are updated to reflect changes in medical practice,
  • relative value of services, and
  • changes in the statute; codification of establishment of new policies for the Medicare Prescription Drug Inflation Rebate Program under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022;
  • the Ambulatory Specialty Model;
  • updates to the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program expanded model;
  • updates to drugs and biological products paid under Part B; Medicare Shared Savings Program requirements;
  • updates to the Quality Payment Program;
  • updates to policies for Rural Health Clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers
  • update to the Ambulance Fee Schedule regulations;
  • codification of the Inflation Reduction Act and Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 provisions;
  • updates to the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program.

Click Here to Read More and Comment

CMS Proposes New Mandatory Alternative Payment Model, the Ambulatory Specialty Model (ASM) – Comment by September 12

September 4, 2025

CMS Proposes New Mandatory Alternative Payment Model, the Ambulatory Specialty Model (ASM) – Comment by September 12

The proposed Ambulatory Specialty Model (ASM) aims to improve prevention and upstream management of chronic disease, which would lead to reductions in avoidable hospitalizations and unnecessary procedures.

Participation in ASM would be mandatory for specialists who commonly treat people with Original Medicare for heart failure or low back pain in an outpatient setting across selected regions. ASM would begin on January 1, 2027 and run for five performance years through December 31, 2031.

Key Points

  • Problem: Delayed detection of chronic conditions, financial incentives that encourage unnecessary procedures, and the lack of care coordination among specialists and primary care providers all contribute to poor health outcomes for people who are at risk for or living with chronic disease. These include delayed diagnosis and poor disease management.
  • Solution: ASM would promote preventive care and more effective upstream chronic disease management by rewarding specialists for improving patient health outcomes and coordination with primary care providers.
  • Outcomes: ASM would reduce avoidable hospitalizations and unnecessary procedures, improve patient experience and outcomes, and lower costs to Original Medicare.
  • Strategy: ASM would help to Make America Health Again by promoting preventive care through interventions like screening, increasing transparency by making provider performance assessments more widely available, and protecting American taxpayers by holding specialists accountable for the cost of care.

Click Here to Read More

Click Here to Read Proposed Rule and Comment

Policy Update: Important Information for CAHs Billing under Method II

September 4, 2025

Policy Update: Important Information for CAHs Billing under Method II

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a reminder that Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) can bill for facility and professional outpatient services only when physicians and or practitioners reassign their billing rights to the CAH, also know as Method II billing.

CAHs can prevent claim denials with reason codes 31006 and 31007 (indicating that providers don’t have the reassignment on file in the Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS) if they submit the reassignment application through PECOS or the paper Form CMS-8551).

Starting in January 2026, CMS will deny CAH claims for professional services if a reassignment is not in PECOS.

Click Here to Read More

Click Here to Access Information for Critical Access Hospitals (PDF) booklet (revised to add reassignment information.