At Murj, we’re driven to help clinics close what we refer to as the “care gap”—or the difference between where cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) clinics are performing and where established standard of care guidelines lie.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) care standards were established to outline best practices for proper treatment of CIED patients. The CMS allowable standard of care encompasses four remote interrogations and one in-office check per year for PPM, ICD, and CRT devices. For ILR and ICM devices, the CMS standard allows for 11 remote interrogations per year. Clinics using outdated software tools or manual, paper-based processes often struggle to ensure they are meeting these care standards.
Gaining insight into clinic performance against CMS allowable and HRS recommended standards of care is critical. It’s the first step in understanding how to bridge the care gap and set a clinic up for long-term success.
Why it’s important to track clinic performance against the recommended standards of care
The standard of care serves as the North Star for CIED clinics, helping to guide providers and staff in achieving superior patient outcomes, streamlining operations, and generating revenue. It summarizes the overall health of a clinic in a few key areas.
1. Patient safety
Standard of care guidelines are set by CMS and HRS first and foremost as a benchmark for patient safety. The standard dictates that clinics need to provide care and complete a report once every 31 or 91 days depending on device intervals. When clinics fail to meet care requirements within these windows, compliance lowers. And when compliance lowers, patient safety is jeopardized.
2. Staff burden
The struggle to meet care requirements relates to numerous factors, but frequently stems from manual and time-consuming workflows impacting clinic staff. If compliance is low, it may be time to determine if and where there is a burden on staff, and how to reduce it.
3. Reimbursement capture
While patient care and staff satisfaction are undoubtedly top of mind for clinicians, the importance of ensuring a clinic’s financial health can’t be overstated. Getting paid for work performed is crucial. Clinics that fall short of achieving standard of care guidelines frequently struggle with reimbursement capture. A clinic’s ability to deliver against the allowable and recommended standards of care could mean the difference between operating as a profit center and operating as a cost center.
How technology can help
Powered by automation, intelligent analytics, and dynamic process optimization, modern tools like Murj are helping CIED clinics deliver superior patient outcomes while running more efficiently—and meeting standard of care guidelines.
Technology can empower your clinic to:
- Use data and key performance indicators (KPIs) to help pinpoint your standard of care performance and set goals to track for improvement
- Automate key processes and procedures to create efficient workflows to achieve these goals
- Use metrics to understand where there are opportunities for process optimization
As a comprehensive CIED clinic management software tool, Murj is uniquely positioned to help clinics turn opportunity into impact by enabling incredible gains in workflow efficiency, staff satisfaction, and patient care.
Murj empowers care delivery to the standard
Murj allows clinics to visualize their performance against the HRS recommended and CMS allowable care standards, and continuously monitor care objectives. Below are some of the key ways Murj helps clinics optimize their operations and prevent care that falls below clinical standards.
Monitor your compliance score in real time
Murj automatically shows clinic performance against a range of care standards that can be set by each clinic. See your entire population, individual patient, manufacturer, or device type standard of care achievements and track progress over time.
This unique score helps clinics proactively detect patient populations at risk of poor remote monitoring compliance. Based on this information, clinics can take appropriate actions immediately, mitigating the negative impacts of failing to reach compliance.
Take advantage of automated interval tracking
Cardiac device 31- and 91-day care intervals are difficult to track when multiple transmissions arrive in each interval. Standard of care compliance can suffer as a result, while billing challenges and denied payments can become the norm. Murj Interval Tracking eliminates these burdens.
Murj Interval Tracking enables clinics to proactively monitor transmission capture and track care intervals to improve reimbursement capture for work performed. Murj automatically keeps track of the HRS recommended and CMS allowable care windows and identifies when each interval is completed, meaning your clinic never misses an interval and never has to adjust a schedule again.
Implement more efficient workflows with OnTap™
A fundamental component of improving clinic performance against standard of care guidelines is the ability to streamline operations and create more efficient workflows. Murj’s OnTap™ functionality is designed to save providers and staff valuable time and effort, so nurses and techs can more effectively deliver care and monitor patients, while front office staff can efficiently handle billing.
OnTap™ allows providers and staff to see daily workload, as well as transmission backlog. OnTap™ saves time by allowing staff to view transmissions from all major device manufacturers on one screen, instead of having to navigate in and out of separate websites to monitor transmissions.
Improving your clinic operations starts with knowing where you stand
Growing patient populations and burgeoning data burdens pose numerous challenges for today’s CIED clinics. But the ability to deliver the best patient care possible should not be one of them.
Knowing your clinic’s performance against standard of care guidelines—and how to make much-needed improvements—is the key to unlocking your clinic’s potential. Murj affords you that knowledge.
Interested in learning more about Murj and how it can help your clinic close the standard of care gap? Connect with Murj today.
