Health Care News

IRS Due Date Extension!

According to the Society of Professional Benefit Administrators (SPBA), the IRS is extending the due date for turning in 2019 Forms 1095-B and 1095-C to individuals from January 31, 2020 to March 2, 2020. Reporting entities must meet two conditions to not receive a penalty under section 6722 for failing to furnish a Form 1095-B: 1)    The reporting entity posts a notice prominently on its website stating that responsible individuals may receive a copy of their 2019 Form 1095-B upon request, accompanied by an email address and a physical address to which a request may be sent, as well as a telephone number that responsible individuals can use to contact the reporting entity with any questions. 2)    The reporting entity furnishes a 2019 Form 1095-B to any responsible individual upon request within 30 days of the date the request is received. See the actual Notice for more details.  To see the actual notice, go to the SPBA website, Health Reform/Reporting/Official Source Documents/IRS Notice 2019-63, it is also on the main page under "What's New". (Source: SPBATPA.org)

Amazon Introducing New Virtual Medical Scribe

The world’s largest cloud computing service, Amazon Web Services, is unveiling a virtual medical scribe which could allow doctors to spend more time with patients and replace costly human transcribers. The voice-to-text transcription can be embedded into any device via an application programming interface and can be stored in an electronic health record (EHR). Read more about Amazon’s move into health care. (Source: CNBC.com)

White House Will Support Consumer Health Cost Bill

Bi-partisan support for a bill protecting consumers from “surprise” medical bills, will receive support from President Trump and the White House.  Surprise medical bills occur when a patient receives care from an out-of-network provider, usually in an emergency situation or as part of a hospitalization. The measure will help “establish a system of arbitration aimed at resolving disputes over surprise bills”. Other parts of the measure include raising the federal minimum age to purchase tobacco products to age 21, to provide $20 billion over five years to develop community health centers, and would start to take steps to limit prescription drug prices. Read more about this effort to reduce health care costs. (Source: US News and World Report)

Health Care Trends in 2020

In a world increasingly reliant on technology, the human connection is still an important, and growing part of health care. As we enter into 2020, there are three human-centric trends in health care.

1. Empowered Consumers – More flexibility, transparency and participation in health care will be expected by these tech-savvy consumers.
2. Technology will continue to become more personalized, from consumer products like Fitbits to electronic health records, more people will rely on tech to guide them in their health care decisions.
3. Physicians will need to better understand the changing demographics of the country and how every segment of the population uses health care differently. In doing so, physicians can learn how to provide more personalized solutions.

Data and technology will be used as more than “just medical history or a list of symptoms” and will provide more opportunities for personalized health care. Read more details about these trends. (Source: MedCityNews.com)

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