Blog

Aug 29, 2018

We have witnessed the impact of two Medicare (CMS) legislative mandates: Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) on the laboratory and healthcare systems and will witness the impact of Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), on January 1, 2019. Both PAMA and MACRA are designed, for the most part, to manage costs through the use of health IT and…

Jul 12, 2018

Will quality reporting under MACRA change? Will it go away? Not likely. The reason: Medicare spend was 15% of total Federal spending in 2017 with payments totaling $702 billion and a projected growth in spend at 4.6% over the next ten years. With these projections the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust is expected to be depleted in 2026, three years earlier than the…

Jun 15, 2018

At the 2018 Executive War College event, XIFIN Vice President of Informatics, Patricia Goede and I discussed the value and importance of integrating pathologists and pathology lab data systems into the cancer care team workflow. Below you’ll find a recap of our talk about integrated pathology approaches—how they impact diagnostics, coordination of care, and…

Jun 12, 2018

I recently attended the ASCO 2018 Annual Meeting on June 1st at the McCormick Place in Chicago where informative educational and scientific sessions highlighted the latest in cancer care treatments. This year attendees connected and shared with peers the latest in cancer treatment, care, and policy that impact the field of oncology and hematology. Among the…

May 16, 2018

At this year’s Executive War College, I was joined by Diana R. Brooks, Director of Program Development, Anatomic Pathology, here at XIFIN, and Julie Ramage, National Account Director, Diagnostics, at Pfizer Oncology as we presented strategies and the value proposition of diagnostic data in precision medicine. This panel explored how implementing a laboratory…

Apr 12, 2018

MACRA’s Role in the Value-based Care Landscape: How pathologists and laboratories will be affected by quality-based rewards and penalties. As CMS continues to develop their initiatives around quality reporting it’s pertinent to not only ensure compliance with current reporting requirements, but to also anticipate what today’s quality reporting means for the…

Feb 12, 2018

This week XIFIN will be speaking at the Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference. This is the 25th annual conference and this year it is expected to have an estimated 3,700 thought leaders present. I will be discussing artificial intelligence (AI) vs. medical doctor. I feel AI and machine learning in pathology would have to complement the regular clinician’s assessment of…