The Interoperability pavilion is the place to be for innovators in healthcare at this year’s ViVE conference in Nashville, March 26-29 powered by CHIME and HLTH. How healthcare organizations share patient data won’t be an abstract concept. It will be a conversation between policymakers, providers and payers, and health tech vendors who are making it all work. In an interview with Sandy Vance, InteropNow! at ViVE organizer and HLTH’s senior adviser, Interoperability, she offered a preview of the interoperability pavilion at ViVE and what she hopes attendees will take away from it.
Vance noted that a series of policy changes would be discussed at the conference. At the end of last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a new rule that would streamline the prior authorization process. A digital version of prior authorization, in which providers ask an insurer whether a recommended course of treatment for the patient will be covered by their insurance plan, could shorten the time frame for these requests to be processed. It would also establish policies to make the prior authorization process more efficient and transparent, according to the CMS website. The rule also proposes to require certain payers to implement standards that would enable data exchange from one payer to another payer when a patient changes their insurer or has concurrent coverage. The change is expected to help ensure that complete patient records will be available throughout patient transitions between payers.
Sandy Vance
“There’s great value in having policymakers talk about these issues and having payers + providers there to give feedback,” said Vance. “In the coverage of healthcare, particularly at events, the ideal is to have a conversation between a policymaker and a stakeholder’s experience of using various technologies to achieve the ends of that policy. The beauty of the Interoperability Pavilion at the ViVE conference powered by HLTH and CHIME is these conversations take place in real time.”
The pressure is on to improve data exchange, especially for an aging patient population and marginalized patients, observed Vance. Payer-to-provider data exchange is a huge topic as organizations strive for patient cost transparency and better processes to get healthcare procedures approved.
The Chief of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Health Informatics and Interoperability Group, Alex Mugge, will share some of the major events that have led to the most recent rule on prior Authorization. Other federal agencies will also be there sharing their initiatives and holding listening sessions with InteropNow! at ViVE attendees.
Other topics to dig into in the interoperability pavilion will include:
- Data Usability
- Data quality standards
- FHIR APIs
- Digital Identity Federation
- National Healthcare Directory for Providers
- Digital Online Patient Registration
- ONC’s Data Modernization Efforts
Register today and join the conversation.
Photo: LeoWolfert, Getty Images
