How to talk to your patients about palliative care

MMS NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Live webinar: Palliative care

Engage in effective discussions to help your patients live well through serious illness. Palliative Care: Aligning the Team Around the Patient will cover:

• Key questions for primary and specialty clinicians to open palliative care discussions with patients and families at any phase of serious illness;
• When and how to refer patients to specialty palliative care;
• The differences between palliative care and hospice care.

The live webinar takes place on Tuesday, June 19, 12:15­–1:30 p.m.

Webinar: Successful MIPS reporting in 2018 — THURSDAY

The Quality Payment Program Year 2 is in full swing. Is your practice prepared to capture data for the Quality Improvement Activities and Promoting Interoperability performance categories to achieve a positive score? Join the New England QIN-QIO for Positioning Your Practice for Successful MIPS Reporting in 2018. The webinar will take place on Thursday, May 31,12:00­­–1:00 p.m., and will explore what has changed in 2018 and how your practice can position itself for successful Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) reporting. Questions?

MDPH: Early info on Ebola outbreak in central Africa 

MDPH is sharing early information on an Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is a precautionary message only. Massachusetts is prepared to assess and treat patients with suspected or confirmed EVD in the unlikely event that they arrive here. Five hospitals have been designated either assessment or treatment hospitals. Additionally, Massachusetts is host to the US HHS Region 1 Ebola and Other Special Pathogens Treatment Center (at MGH). MDPH will continue to monitor the situation. Questions? Call (617) 983-6800.

What’s up in advocacy and policy

Pros and cons of the revised opioid bill (CARE Act)

The MMS provided testimony to the Joint Committee on Mental Health regarding the revised version of the Governor’s opioid bill (CARE Act). The Society commended provisions that would expand access to evidence-based medication therapies, particularly a novel program to support physicians through peer-to-peer consultation, a refined standing order system for distributing naloxone, and improved partial fill options. The Society expressed concerns about a broad e-prescribing mandate that could impede patients’ access to medications and significantly burden providers, and 72-hour involuntary commitment. The MMS urged a more robust effort to provide medication treatment to incarcerated people and the establishment of a pilot supervised injection facility.

Photo: James F. X. Kenealy, MD, testified on involuntary civil commitment at the 2018 MMS Annual Meeting last month.

Reminders: Stuff you should click on

Individual Claims Consultation: Are you having problems getting paid?

Looking for an efficient way to resolve unpaid insurance claims? The MMS is hosting three Individual Claims Consultation days this summer and fall. These are opportunities for you and/or your practice colleague to meet with representatives from insurance companies to troubleshoot specific claims. The events will be held in Holyoke (Wed., July 25), Waltham (Thur., Aug. 16), and Lakeville (Thur., Sept. 20).

Live event: Palliative care
Palliative Care: Aligning the Team Around the Patient via live webinar
Tues., June 19, 2018, 12:15 p.m.–1:30 p.m.

Featured online CME courses
Basic Introduction to Stark Law — NEW
The Promises and Pitfalls of Transforming Health through Technology and Information
(6 modules) — NEW

Quote of the week

"There is indeed something wrong when so many Americans need help feeding themselves and their families. But it is not something that can be fixed by imposing new, unproven and, frankly, miserly work rules on poor Americans."
Editorial on tougher work rules for SNAP benefits (LA Times)

Tweet of the week

What’s new in health care

Check out the most clicked-on stories from this week's MMS Media Watch.
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Merged hospitals would be called Beth Israel Lahey Health
Individual hospitals will retain their own names, including Beverly Hospital, Lahey Medical Center in Peabody, Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, and Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport, officials said. 

Baystate Franklin Medical, nurses reach agreement on 5-year contract
Baystate said the hospital and the nurses were able to come to terms on  staffing issues that had held the two sides apart. Nurses claimed the hospital was not addressing persistent staffing shortages.

Jury awards black nurse $28 million in Brigham retaliation suit
A Haitian-American nurse who sued Brigham and Women's Hospital for discrimination and retaliation was awarded more than $28 million by a jury Wednesday — an amount several attorneys said is the largest verdict of this type in Massachusetts. 

Partners & Care New England sign acquisition agreement
The deal will bring another three hospitals into the fold of Partners HealthCare, a nonprofit which is the parent of 12 hospitals. Combined, Care New England has 970 beds and 216 infant bassinets between Butler Hospital, Kent Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island. 

Cancer study shows stretching a big boon (in mice)
“I think we're now starting to really see the body might be able to mount its own defenses against cancer,” said Dr. Helene Langevin, one of the study’s authors and director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

Partnership based at BU gets $50m to help fight drug-resistant superbugs
The partnership, CARB-X, will receive $25 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and $26.8 million from the UK government to come up with life-saving products to fight superbugs, particularly for "vulnerable populations" in poor and middle-income countries.

Children’s and Prouty defenders agree: New garden is ‘completely different’
Despite the ongoing opposition, the hospital touts the first rooftop garden as a feat of engineering. Over 18 months, all the major building mechanical systems elsewhere on the roof were relocated, and a seven-foot high roof deck was built to allow for drainage.

Scientists in Mass. and beyond are working to slow the aging process
Ambitious efforts are underway in Massachusetts and beyond to develop the first government-approved drugs to stretch healthy life spans. Some researchers are scrambling to repurpose a diabetes medicine to target age-related diseases.

Boston hospitals stay prepared for tragedy
Local hospitals have elaborate measures in place to prepare for mass tragedies, including large-scale drills with actor patients and wound-patching tutorials for civilians — and with each harrowing event like the Texas shooting, doctors learn more.