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In November 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published their requirements regarding COVID-19 vaccine immunization. It mandates that staff among Medicare- and Medicaid-certified providers and suppliers must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of March 15, 2022.
Confirming You Are in Compliance with the CMS Vaccine Mandate
The CMS vaccine mandate only applies to CMS-certified providers and healthcare settings regulated by CMS for health and safety. It does not cover other recipients of Medicare and Medicaid funds.

IntelliCentrics recently attended the 2022 Becker’s ASC Review Meeting. There we talked to healthcare executives from ambulatory care facilities across the nation and used our demos to show them how digital credentialing can ensure the highest level of revenue activation and operational efficiencies.
The results of those conversations indicate that many ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) are in need of  new technology to credential vendors and providers. Specifically in provider credentialing, they often rely on a manual process to onboard physicians,

Healthcare vendor management is an umbrella term for the processes hospitals use to manage vendors, including sourcing and researching suppliers, evaluating pricing, negotiating vendor contracts, ensuring timely delivery of goods and services, credentialing vendors, and controlling the time and location of vendor visits. 
Why Vendor Management Is Important
Vendor management keeps your facility costs low while removing obstacles to delivering mission-critical goods. A good hospital vendor management system makes the vendoring process easier for all involved while encouraging the growth of strategic relationships between vendors and facilities. 

Hospitals require vendor credentialing to manage their supply chains efficiently while ensuring all vendors comply with facility policies. Digitized vendor credentialing cuts operating expenses, helps hospitals control the revolving door of daily visitors, and enhances workforce safety. 
A lack of technology solutions for tracking and verifying vendors is one of the most common pain points reported by healthcare supply chain managers, who often raise concerns about the legal implications of inadequate vendor management systems. Gaps in vendor management also put the physical and virtual safety of patients and data at risk.

The AHRMM trade show takes place August 7-10 in Anaheim, California and IntelliCentrics will be onsite on the 8th and 9th at booth 600 for in-person meetings and product demos. We will cover how technological advancements can help you safely manage the revolving door — the continuous movement of providers, patients, vendors, and visitors who visit your healthcare facility. 
Creating Operational Efficiencies in a Secure Environment
The primary goal of the technology services offered by Intellicentrics is to improve operational efficiencies in healthcare facilities while maintaining a secure environment.

Digitization of processes in healthcare facilities has developed rapidly over the last decade. Billions of dollars have been invested in areas as diverse as electronic health records, big data, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, predictive healthcare, and wearable medical devices. 
We recently conducted a poll on LinkedIn amongst hospital executives. The poll focuses on the preferred methods of enhancing physical security onsite. Minimizing entry points and enforcing check-in procedures were the leading vote-getters, with increasing visitor monitoring and installing metal detectors also garnering votes.

Value-based healthcare is a relatively new delivery model focused on patient health outcomes. Under value-based care, hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare providers are paid based on their ability to provide improved health and quality of life while reducing rates and symptoms of chronic disease. Introduced in 2006, measuring health outcomes against the cost of said outcomes determines the “value” of value-based care. In a value-based care agreement, patients with providers create a treatment plan and measure clinical results during treatment. 

Inflationary pressures dominate the economic outlook for 2022 due to labor shortages, supply chain backlogs stemming from the pandemic, and continued disruptions of food, energy, and other materials caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the all-items index increased 8.6 percent between May 2021 and May 2022, the largest twelve-month increase in over forty years. 
The same factors driving inflation in other sectors also impact healthcare, although the results of inflationary pressures on healthcare tend to be delayed.