How Health Professionals Succeed at Social Media

We’ve often spoken about the health industry adopting social media, and now it seems that someone has been listening to those calls. Docs are flocking to social media in record numbers, outpacing other American adults by up to 22%. Now that they’ve arrived, however, it seems that there is some dissension on what to do with it.

Patricia Redsicker, a social media professional, looked at three well-known physicians to see how they were handling their online presence.

While they’re all very professional, both Dr. Oz and Dr. Rankin show a more like-able side on Facebook, while Dr. Gupta hardly gives his fans a chance to get to know him. However on Twitter, he is extremely personable, chats with people and seems to ‘listen’ to what others are saying as well.

Redsicker found very little variation between these well-known online presences, but we think she didn’t go deep enough. These doctors, though all experts in their own right, are more celebrity than professional at this point. We were curious to see what health workers at the lower ranks were doing with their new-found social media profiles.

Most of the professionals we located used what Kevin Pho, MD refers to as the ‘dual-citizenship approach.’ By maintaining a personal profile, and a professional ‘page,’ docs can enjoy the benefits of social media without risking compliance or HIPAA issues. Patients and colleagues would connect with the doctor through their professional page, while their family and friends could converse separately on their personal profile.

Other docs preferred a more drastic angle, opting instead to avoid a personal presence entirely, using their personal profile as their sole professional gateway. To us, it seemed that those docs utilizing the dual-presence system were almost universally more successful.

At the end of the day, social media is about creating a personable, but controlled, presence online, and we think that the dual-citizenship approach is more successful  for that purpose.

Are you a medical professional using social media? Tell us below how you handle the delicate issue.

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Pam Argeris is a thought leader in the Healthcare Industry and possesses extensive, hands-on experience with CMS compliance, and multiple regulatory bodies such as NCQA, JACHO, and DOI. In her role at Merrill Corp., Pam focuses on developing solutions for compliance and quality assurance, delivered in a cost effective manner to improve beneficiary and prospect communications. You can contact Pam at Pamela.Argeris@merrillcorp.com.

Can We Afford To Cut Medicaid?

It’s a hot-button issue, with passionate opinions and research on both sides: Will Medicaid budget cuts be the solution to the nation’s healthcare cost problem? In our last blog, we introduced the reasons behind the sudden interest in Medicaid, and hinted that we’d be spending more time investigating the most significant arguments on either side. Today, we’ll do just that, and then put the question to you.

Those in Favor: Cut Medicaid, or risk everything.

The state of Illinois is being elevated to the top of the Medicaid debate, with Governor Pat Quinn suggesting a drastic $2.7 Billion cut to the program this budget year. It seems like a dramatic gesture, but in thisDaily Herald interview, Quinn argues that the alternatives are far worse.

Aides say Quinn will suggest trimming projected Medicaid spending by $2.7 billion in the budget year that starts July 1. If they don't, aides warn, a backlog of unpaid bills that already stands at $1.9 billion will grow so large that doctors, hospitals and pharmacies may cut off services because the state can't pay for them.

"This is not something that we can blithely delay for another year," said Michael Gelder, Quinn's senior health care policy adviser. "We really fear the collapse of the program if that accounts payable balance grows by another penny."

Among the budget cuts are reduced payment rates for doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, as well as more uniform health coverage, such as limiting eyeglass replacement to once a year.

Those Opposed: Don’t put our well-being at risk.

For many Medicaid-dependent families in the United States, the idea of budget cuts is a living nightmare. “The reality is that as hospitals would be forced to lay off staff, patients would face longer wait times and distances to receive intensive care as well as cutbacks in services,” says Parish Medical Center’s George Mikitarian. “We know this from experience, since last year, $500 million in Medicaid cuts led to major job cuts, with many hospitals reducing access to primary-care clinics, OB/GYN services, skilled nursing units and outpatient chemotherapy services.”

Several activist groups have formed in Florida, where citizens fear their family doctors will be pushed out of the state in search of better payments. Florida’s proposed budget cuts were inspired by a $2 Billion loss in revenue, leaving the state unable to pay healthcare costs.

So we are left with an unpleasant situation. Regardless of the final decisions made, someone will be losing out. The question is, which solution will result in the best opportunities for the citizens of the country? Tell us your opinion in the comments below.

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Pam Argeris is a thought leader in the Healthcare Industry and possesses extensive, hands-on experience with CMS compliance, and multiple regulatory bodies such as NCQA, JACHO, and DOI. In her role at Merrill Corp., Pam focuses on developing solutions for compliance and quality assurance, delivered in a cost effective manner to improve beneficiary and prospect communications. You can contact Pam at Pamela.Argeris@merrillcorp.com.

Is Medicaid Getting the Axe?

In states across the nation, Medicaid funding is getting chopped in efforts to improve floundering government budgets. Among the most staggering cuts are those in Maine, which will remove $220 million from the Medicaid budget. Is this a solution that has become unavoidable?

Maine’s proposal comes on the back of bipartisan support at the congressional level. Experts insist that Medicaid has taken harder hits than this in the past, and that “The size of Maine’s Medicaid shortfall is substantial, but it pales in comparison to gaps in many other states.” In fact, Illinois is looking at closing a $2 Billion hole this year.

According to senators supporting the cuts, Medicaid has had this coming for a while. “Senator Syverson says Illinois has allowed people to collect Medicaid even though they don't meet the income requirement,” reads one article fighting for reform instead of cuts. “[They] aren't residents of the state, and some people even collect Medicaid under multiple names.”

Reform is on the top-of-mind in Maine, where Republican Governor Paul LePage calls for an end to “free lunches” for healthy young adults taking advantage of the system.

But LePage also wants to get at enrollment, and this is what makes him, at the moment, the most draconian of the governors when it comes to health policy. In his Jan. 24 state of the state speech, LePage argued that “we have encouraged people to rely on the taxpayers, rather than rely on themselves.” The cuts to enrollment, he argues, are necessary to shore up the state’s safety net so it can continue to care for its most vulnerable residents — children, elders and the disabled.

We’ll follow up, in our next post, with some more of the strong arguments for and against Medicaid cuts.

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Pam Argeris is a thought leader in the Healthcare Industry and possesses extensive, hands-on experience with CMS compliance, and multiple regulatory bodies such as NCQA, JACHO, and DOI. In her role at Merrill Corp., Pam focuses on developing solutions for compliance and quality assurance, delivered in a cost effective manner to improve beneficiary and prospect communications. You can contact Pam at Pamela.Argeris@merrillcorp.com.

Inspiring Story Raises Questions About Health IT Costs

Evelyn Castle and Adam Thompson, two philanthropists in Nigeria, have been toiling to introduce new technology to needy hospitals in the African nation. The facilities, some of which see up to 50 births a day, are not equipped to handle the amount of data collection and storage that is necessary for an operation of their size. Previous efforts to introduce modern technology to these hospitals failed in the past, because the workers are not familiar enough with the tech to make use of it.

 “The people that are using our system are not exactly the most educated of people; a lot of people have never used a computer before. We have to start them with, how do you use a mouse,” Castle says. “Introducing a Microsoft or a Kaiser platform is not going to work for them. The software we use is a lot more simplistic and a lot more user friendly.” And for an NGO (non-government organization) like eHealth Nigeria, it doesn’t hurt that OpenMRS is free.

OpenMRS used in Kaduna, Nigeria

OpenMRS is an open source health records system, designed to be used by health facilities in underdeveloped countries. The software is extremely simplistic, easy to pick up, and completely free. Wired Magazine, who interviewed the innovative pair, has more information about their efforts, but we are more interested in the ramifications of this type of IT breakthrough.

Like the generic pharmaceuticals of the IT world, open source software provides IT solutions for problems that traditionally have large price tags. In addition to being a costless platform, open source software is also flexible and customizable; facilities can have the code altered to meet their specific needs.

OpenMRS has an impressive list of features, for free software, though it lacks some of the bells and whistles that modern hospitals would be used to. And, while it may be the perfect solution for around a hundred facilities, it likely can’t hold up on the scale of larger hospitals. Most interestingly, however, is the fact that the recent HHS competitions to revitalize Health IT development may be headed in the open source direction.

If the overall goal of re-inventing health technology is to save money and improve efficiency, doesn’t this type of software seem like a good option?

Does your facility use any free or open source software? We’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment below to tell us about your experiences.

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Pam Argeris is a thought leader in the Healthcare Industry and possesses extensive, hands-on experience with CMS compliance, and multiple regulatory bodies such as NCQA, JACHO, and DOI. In her role at Merrill Corp., Pam focuses on developing solutions for compliance and quality assurance, delivered in a cost effective manner to improve beneficiary and prospect communications. You can contact Pam at Pamela.Argeris@merrillcorp.com.