Monday, October 31, 2016

UPDATE: Verification of Graduate Medical Education Training Form

The National Association Medical Staff Services (NAMSS), in partnership with the American Hospital Association, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, and the Organization of Program Director Associations, released a new Verification of Graduate Medical Education Training Form in April 2016. This form, developed over the past several years, seeks to standardize the process for the verification of a practitioner’s internship, residency and fellowship experience in compliance with healthcare accreditation organizations’ standards. Over time, each hospital, managed care organization and other healthcare entities developed their own unique forms for obtaining verification of training. This created an inefficient system in which training programs received multiple variations on requests for the same information, slowing the credentialing and onboarding of practitioners and creating extra work for all involved. This new verification form eliminates these inefficiencies through standardization. Since its release, the form has already been downloaded over 6,000 times and is being implemented in hospitals and other healthcare organizations across the country.

The Verification of Graduate Medical Education Training Form is available for download HERE.


Monday, October 24, 2016

11 of Nation's Largest Payers Advocate for Expansion of Medicare Telemedicine

In a letter to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week, eleven of the nation's largest health insurance carriers offered to make available data on the value of telemedicine as Congress considers expanded coverage under Medicare for telemedicine services.The letter states, "We view telemedicine as an important tool in increasing consumer access to high quality, affordable healthcare, improving patient satisfaction and reducing costs," and, "We believe our experience in the commercial market can inform estimates of the impact of policy changes in Medicare."

For the full story from HealthLeaders Media, please click here. For the full text of the letter, please click here.