The Bridge Blog

Updated on November 24, 2020. Having a post-visit communication plan can significantly improve patient outcomes by reducing the number of emergency visits, decreasing the hospital readmission rate, and improving chronic disease management. “Patients who effectively used a portal were 2-4% less likely to be hospitalized. Those who engaged with the…Read more

Propelled by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the move towards fee-for-value care delivery models versus fee-for-service, chronic care management services (CCM) have the potential to significantly reduce healthcare spending. Patients who have the education and training they need to manage their chronic illness will incur lower healthcare costs. The overall…Read more

Patient engagement is a necessary element for the achievement of a better quality of care and it is a critical component of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) initiative to focus on the quality of care.  CMS programs like the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, MACRA, are…Read more

Updated on January 26, 2022 Although texting appointment reminders are allowed under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) due to the fact that “appointment reminders”[¹] are considered part of the treatment of an individual and, therefore, can be made without authorization, new HIPAA privacy rules have recently added more…Read more

By engaging patients and encouraging participation in their healthcare, organizations can ensure a greater number of health goals are met. Of course, patient engagement can be a challenge, but a successful plan starts with a realistic goal. Do you know what percent of patients your organization should initially attempt to…Read more

More and more health organizations are implementing publicly-exposed web technologies containing Protected Health Information (PHI) which are subject to the laws of HIPAA. Common examples of such systems include Electronic Health Record (EHR), web portal, patient portal software, and mhealth solution. When those systems become integrated, PHI must travel from one…Read more

With the MIPS reporting period deadlines just around the corner, we at Bridge Patient Portal are seeing a surge in attention being directed towards the MACRA program as patient portals make up an important part of MIPS scoring. While the MACRA program already began at the start of 2017 many…Read more

For more than a decade, healthcare institutions have been using electronic health records (EHRs), as well as standardized templates for files containing medical information, in order to share data electronically.  By 2011, the number of physicians using EHR systems had grown to 57% – and since then, with the introduction…Read more

It pays to keep patients happy, and many certified patient portal vendors just aren’t cutting it. While this is mostly the result of software vendors focusing solely on Meaningful Use/MACRA requirements, it also has to do with vendors not investing sufficient resources in research and development (R&D), and in simply…Read more

Interoperability is necessary for the attainment of a more efficient healthcare system and the use of HIEs. It puts important patient data at physicians’ fingertips, allowing for more informed decision-making and better continuity of care. Interoperability is on the rise, spurred by government efforts to increase health information exchange; however,…Read more