Between the increase in mental health diagnoses and a shortage of mental health specialists nationwide, primary care providers have taken on increased involvement in treatment mental health concerns. To help our members and patients navigate these issues, VHAN offers helping tools and resources.
Following her gastric bypass procedure at another area hospital, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) employee immediately began to experience serious complications. In addition to the physical challenges, she became depressed, even feeling a sense of embarrassment and shame over having chosen to undergo the procedure. Read the full story to learn how VHAN RN Care Navigator Katie Crider connected with her to provide essential support.
On a recent episode of the miniVHAN podcast, host Mallory Yoder discussed best practices in risk-adjustment coding with Victor Legner, MD, a geriatrician with expertise in clinical documentation and coding integrity. In the following Q&A, Dr. Legner offers further insights on coding for depression, diabetes, obesity, heart failure as well as guidelines for better patient communication.
VHAN’s Adult Behavioral Health Consult Line offers primary care providers a real-time phone consultation by a licensed clinical social worker to help manage patients’ mental health needs. Shannon Brown, LCSW, answers some FAQs. to help members better understand this service.
As young people graduate from high school and move into a new phase of early adulthood, it’s a good time to focus on moving these patients to adult care. Read the full article to get details on how VHAN’s Pediatric to Adult Transitions Quick Reference Guide can help your practice in this area.
Every January, many health plans change their preferred insulin products on their formularies, creating confusion and frustration for patients, prescribers and pharmacies. A few simple strategies can help make this shift more efficient for providers and patients. Read the full article to learn how you can tweak your prescribing practices to reduce delays and ensure your patients get the medications they need.
Studies show that cancer screenings have declined since the pandemic disrupted health care in 2020, and they haven’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. Unfortunately, this will cause fewer cases of cancer and other serious illnesses to be caught early, likely creating sicker patients in the long run. VHAN has tools and resources available to help members increase cancer screening rates and educate patients about their importance.
To bolster mental health awareness and education, the miniVHAN podcast chose Behavioral Health Through the Lifespan for its recent series. Expert guests offered insights to help providers and their patients better understand and cope with anxiety and depression, neurodiversity, trauma and grief.
If you’ve missed any of the episodes, catch up on miniVHANpodcast.com.
Medication adherence is a key driver of patient outcomes. Any medication therapy is ineffective if the patient cannot access or take it consistently. In addition, adherence is a triple-weighted quality measure on Medicare Advantage (MA) contracts. To help VHAN practices improve medication adherence this year and place a greater year-round focus on this crucial quality measure, the VHAN Pharmacy Team recommends three strategies.