This blog post was written by Michele Treinin, Healthcare Analyst at Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS), a healthcare consulting firm in Syracuse, NY. Getting a prescription historically meant going to the doctor, addressing a chief complaint, being given a piece of paper with a name of a drug and instructions for the pharmacist on how Read more

This blog post was written by our guest blogger Susan Maxsween, Director of Healthcare-Practice Transformation. A variety of social media platforms are changing the way consumers share information about personal health, physicians and treatments. The world is now a technologically driven place, and it is in the best interest of both physicians catering to patient Read more

The Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) healthcare team recently came across an article posted in the most current edition of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review. The article summarizes a survey conducted by HealthPocket, which discusses how one-third of patients may switch doctors if the price was right. Here is the article text taken from the Quirk’s website: Read more

Effective July 1, 2013, New York State Medicaid Program is changing the reimbursement policy and billing requirements for providers recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) under the Physician Practice Connections-Patient Centered Medical Home (PPC®-PCMH™) program (2008 Standards). The new policy applies to both Medicaid Managed Care and Fee-for-Service (FFS).  Payments will be Read more

This blog post was written by our guest blogger Susan Maxsween, Director of RMS Healthcare, Practice Transformation, and her Practice Transformation team at Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS). Every employee has an important role in marketing. Whether a member of patient registration, discharge, administrative, clinical or billing staff, each staff member serves equally as an Read more

Recently the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth) jointly sponsored a webinar briefing on the Quality of Health Care in New York State.  This represented the first time that NCQA has prepared reports highlighting trends in health care on 122 measures of quality, comparing one state, New Read more

This blog post was written by our guest bloggers from the RMS Healthcare Transformation Team. Measuring patient experience is a growing trend in healthcare and a pivotal element in providing quality patient care.  Although it has been federally mandated for hospitals and home health agencies for a number of years, the Centers for Medicare and Read more

The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) program offers a host of  surveys to accommodate various healthcare settings. Recently, CMS requested information to aid in the design and development of a new survey tool for hospital outpatient surgery departments (HOSDs) and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), which ultimately would add another survey tool to Read more

This blog was written by our guest bloggers Susan Maxsween, Director of RMS Healthcare – Practice Transformation, Karen Joncas, Healthcare Transformation Coordinator, and Al Tripodi, Healthcare Administrative Assistant. RMS Healthcare salutes specialty care practices for adopting the recently launched medical home concept as “neighbors” of primary care practices in providing quality patient care. On March Read more

This article was featured as part of the Quality Care Courier from Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS). If knowledge, including patient data, is power then the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has sent a message to providers and other organizations charged with handling and protecting that data when it published the HIPAA omnibus final rule: With great Read more