MACRA Care Coordination Software

Last week we talked about how MACRA legislation is a game changer for how providers will be paid in the future for their Medicare patients.  This week we will focus on the value and benefits of using care coordination software solutions to maximize MACRA payments and care delivery productivity.

Specific opportunities for using care coordination software to maximize revenue include:

• building and managing “whole person” longitudinal care plans
• automating data collection and workflows
• automating interactions with patients and with other professional care team members
• automating the selection and management of community based services to help patients ‘

While some EMR software vendors will be able to support the need to capture and report quality metrics – support for care coordination – particularly for complex patients – will likely require separate care coordination software.

In selecting a care coordination software solution, we would like to point out two key considerations to keep in mind.   First, there are benefits in selecting a solution that can scale to support the more advanced MACRA alternative payment models – even if a practice begins in the basic MERIT based payment model and transitions later to a more advanced model.    Second, it is important to select a platform that can fully support the creation and management of robust longitudinal care plans as a foundation for maximizing patient outcomes that in turn should maximize MACRA payments to the practice.

Recently, Chilmark Research – an independent healthcare software evaluation company – Chilmark concluded that many software vendors where two to three years away from offering fully featured longitudinal care plan software solution.  Chilmark defined a robust longitudinal care plan as a solution that can support eight core components (see exhibit A below):

Exhibit A: Eight Core Components of a Robust Longitudinal Care Plan

Source:  Longitudinal Care Plans, Chilmark Research, Dec. 2015.

Eight “core” elements of a Robust Longitudinal Care Plan:

1. Patient demographics
2. Members of the care team
3. Any care management programs the patient is in
4. Active problem list
5. Active medication list
6. Goals, including those for self-management
7. All health interventions and their current status
8. Risk factors for the patient

eTransX’s  XCare Community system fully supports all eight core components out of the box today.  The old adage of “pay me now or pay be later” applies as you evaluate and select your software application solutions for maximizing MACRA payments.   By starting now with  a robust care coordination software solution that will support your current and future MACRA deployment  options can potentially save you significant money and time in the long run.

For more information on the XCare Community system – contact Richard Taylor at 615 620 7524 or rtaylor@etransx.com.