HICE CEO Update - September 2022

From: broadcast@iceforhealth.org 1
Date: 9/15/2022 9:07:12 AM
Subject: HICE CEO Update - September 2022
Message:

To HICE Participants

Welcome back to the bi-monthly CEO Update, designed to keep members apprised of the current happenings at HICE! Here is an update on what has been going on since my last report:

Association Partners – I had the opportunity to meet with the new AGP CEO, Susan Dentzer, in early August, and provide her with some background on HICE, as well as updates on current projects. HICE has been invited to present at the APG regional meeting in San Diego later this month, and I will also be participating at the APG California Board Policy Retreat in October. These events will provide us with an excellent opportunity to engage in-person with provider organization leadership and hear about what HICE can do to better assist their organizations. Preparations are also underway to present a session on successes in collaboration at the upcoming CAHP conference in October, and I am looking forward to all of these opportunities for some face-to-face networking to promote the value proposition of HICE to the industry - I hope to see some of you there!

The Health Net / IHA Medi-Cal Encounter Data Project (EDGE) – this initiative remains a major focus of the HICE Encounters Standardization Team. The work is continuing with IHA, with a current focus on the top rejection for encounters, which is duplicates. Participating team members are in the process of completing an organization root cause analysis project for review by the team in order to make recommendations for industry-wide improvements.

2023 Operating Budget Funding Request Letters – as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, HICE relies on annual contributions from health plans, provider organizations and other health care industry entities to support educational and collaborative activities, and our important work cannot continue without this critical funding. These request letters were sent to participating organizations earlier this week, and we encourage those organizations not currently contributing to strongly consider making a donation to help fund the 2023 operating budget so HICE can continue to find a consistent way to implement regulations with the minimal amount of impact and the maximum amount of return for both the health plan and the provider community that enable them to more readily and easily comply with regulation.

2022 HICE Annual Conference – this year’s conference will be conducted virtually on Wednesday, December 7. Topics and speakers for the agenda are being finalized and more information should be available on the HICE website soon, with registration expected to open in October. There are several regulatory agency keynote speakers slated to present, and several sessions are planned around the many changes taking place in the California Medi-Cal market.
 
HICE Team / Website Updates

  • Coded Division of Financial Responsibility (DOFR) - HICE has a contract with the AMA to utilize their CPT codes to be able to provide to the industry at no charge a Coded Division of Financial Responsibility (DOFR) template that is updated annually. The HICE workgroup is continuing to update the existing version with CPT/HCPC codes for the 2022 release and adding new categories, such as wound care and new technology. The updated DOFR is expected to be released in October. 
  • Health Plan Letter Template Upload Tool – we are excited to announce that a web-based tool is now available for participating health plans to be able to directly and easily manage the maintenance of their health plan-specific letter templates posted on the HICE website for delegates to access! Features include uploading templates, archiving out-of-date templates and sending a broadcast notice to those signed up to receive them that health plan-specific letter templates have been made available. This will replace the current process where health plans need to reach out by e-mail to specific HICE teams with their posting requests, and we hope this will encourage more health plans to post their letter templates for delegates to easily access in a single location on the HICE website. The development of this new tool was made possible by the annual funding donations made by contributing organizations, and you can find more information about it here.
To learn more about all of the great work that the HICE teams are doing and for updates on the website enhancements that are underway, review the Executive Summary of Team Activities on our website.

Until the next update, please feel free to contact me by e-mail or at 530-562-4235, with any suggestions, questions or comments. Thank you!





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