MedAxiom HeartTalk

Patient acuity is a critical benchmark for ensuring the patient has a proper care plan – it essentially saves lives. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson talks with Amy Simone, PA-C, FACC, director of the Marcus Heart Valve Center at Piedmont Heart Institute, and Vinod Thourani, MD, FACC, professor of Cardiac Surgery and chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at Piedmont Healthcare at the Marcus He...

Patients with more advanced disease are returning to hospitals in pre-pandemic volumes and the cost of treating them is now higher. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson speaks with Stuart Jacobson, Founder & CEO of Biome Analytics, Amber Pawlikowski, MSN, RN, CPHQ, Director of Client Services & Quality Improvement Analytics at Biome Analytics, and Bradley Hubbard, MD, Cardiologist at Trinity...

On MedAxiom HeartTalk, we are diving deeper with part two on the PEARLS Paper - a blueprint structural heart programs can use to optimize care. Host, Melanie Lawson, speaks with Elizabeth Perpetua, DNP, ACNP-BC, FACC, Patricia Keegan, DNP, NP-C, AACC, Roseanne Palmer, MSN, RN, and Susan Schnell, MSN, ACNP-BC, all co-authors of the paper. They share how their geographical challenges influenced thei...

Do you have a reliable roadmap for optimizing care during a crisis? On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson speaks with guests Elizabeth Perpetua, DNP, ACNP-BC, FACC, Kimberly Guibone, DNP, ACNP-BC, FACC, Martina Kelly Speight, MSN, FNP-BC, and Joan Michaels, RN, MSN, CPHQ. They share insights from their PEARLS paper – a blueprint for structural heart programs to optimize care and improve outco...

With misinformation running rampant in this new digital age, providing accurate information to our patients is more important than ever. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson speaks with Samantha Avery, DO, Thabet Alsheikh, MD and Kevin Mair, MBA who have implemented innovative strategies prioritizing patient education in their clinical programs. They discuss the benefits of both community an...

This MedAxiom HeartTalk explores recent TVT Registry data on racial and socioeconomic disparities in structural heart programs, such as TAVR. Host Melanie Lawson talks with Wayne Batchelor, MD, Inova Health, Kimberly Guibone, DNP, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Joan Michaels, RN, of the American College of Cardiology. They examine some possible reasons for these disparities and a few st...

In this episode, we celebrate 20 years of transforming cardiovascular care, together. From physician-hospital integration, to major legislative reform, to a global pandemic, the MedAxiom community, alongside the American College of Cardiology (ACC), has always found a way to meet the challenge of the day, pushing the needle towards innovation. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson sits down w...

Transcatheter valve therapy (TVT) is always evolving and is one of the most exciting areas of innovation in our industry. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson talks with experts Vinod Thourani, MD, and John Carroll, MD, about how TVT innovations are impacting the way they deliver care and why tracking data collaboratively is crucial to future advancements. Plus, Ginger Biesbrock, MedAxiom’s...

Cardiovascular care transformation starts with data and it’s more important now than ever. The COVID pandemic has created a volatile healthcare environment, drastically impacting volumes, fundamentally changing how care is delivered and presenting significant financial challenges. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson talks with Lori Walsh, EVP of Membership & Operations, MHSA and Karen Wilso...

What does the future hold for coding workforce trends? On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson talks with Revenue Cycle Solutions Consultants, Joline Bruder and Jammie Quimby. They discuss the importance of a coder-physician relationship, what the most significant changes for coders and revenue-cycle staff might be, plus they explain how COVID-19 has made it even more critical to understand the...

Administrative and leadership roles in cardiovascular care are complex, and a staffing gap can present a real problem for your organization’s momentum. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, we speak to industry thought leader, Joel Sauer, MedAxiom’s EVP of Consulting, as he explains what the MedAxiom team is doing to address this problem. Joining him in the discussion is Chris Lipp of WellSpan Health. He shares...

Cardiac Rehab in the COVID Era. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson, talks with Terri McDonald, Vice President of Consulting at MedAxiom. She shares the latest CMS Guidelines and what that means for your program and patients. We also speak with Terry Rogers, President of Pritikin Intensive Cardiac Rehab and Dr. Jerry Blackwell, CEO and President of MedAxiom to share how the two organization...

Patient access is a significant challenge, and the pandemic only made things worse. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, one patient describes the struggles he faced as he underwent heart surgery during the peak of COVID-19. Plus, Providence Health's Dr. Ty Gluckman and MedAxiom's Ginger Biesbrock share innovative solutions to the patient access problem and strategies for putting the patient at the center of ca...

Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States, so why are only 13% of cardiologists and 4.5% of practicing interventionalists women? On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson talks with Dr. Pamela Rama and Dr. Ruby Satpathy of Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida. As part of a team that includes six female cardiologists, they share how you can empower the women in your o...

COVID-19 has disrupted the healthcare system and forced CV programs to transform the way they deliver care. With a new year and new host, Melanie Lawson, MedAxiom HeartTalk explores the concept of innovation and how to leverage the lessons learned in 2020. We talk with MedAxiom's Ginger Biesbrock, EVP of Care Transformation, and Taylr Jesinger, VP of Innovation, to discuss why they're so passionat...

Whether there’s a need to expand office space or acquire real estate, CV programs need capital and property management expertise. But few have sufficient amounts of either, in-house. That’s where a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) can help. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, Dan Klein and Mark Dukes from Physicians Realty Trust – better known as DOC – discuss how you can partner with a REIT to relieve the...

This conversation was recorded back in February 2020. We'd planned to release the episode, but then the pandemic hit, and everyone's world turned upside down. So much has changed in the last several months, and we know many of you are finding yourselves in unsettling times. So we thought you might appreciate a pre-Covid escape to this discussion on physician satisfaction. About 30% of cardiologist...

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) has become the preferred test for diagnosing coronary artery disease. Although the clinical advantages are many, implementing a cardiac PET program requires planning, training, new technologies, and change management to challenge CV leadership. In this episode, we talk with two physicians who have led the execution of cardiac PET programs and myocardial blood flo...

We can see COVID-19's seismic impact on CV patient care, but what’s happening beneath the surface? Revenue cycle teams report massive shifts as well. Nicole Knight, MedAxiom’s VP of Revenue Cycle Solutions and Consulting, explains how to make the most of these changes, embrace virtual technologies and prepare for what’s coming in 2021.

COVID-19 has accelerated the shift toward delivering remote care and using digital platforms to monitor patients. Many have embraced telehealth visits, but what else can CV providers do to monitor and care for patients outside the clinic? Here to answer that question are MedAxiom HeartTalk guests Todd Butka, Founder and CEO of cardiac device data management software company, Murj, and Jude Hebert,...

In a CV practice, good communication between physicians and the coding team is vital. Still, coders and physicians usually work in different office areas – often in separate buildings – and everyone has a packed schedule. When coders find inaccuracies or missing elements in the documentation, it's tough to communicate them. In this episode, MedAxiom's Revenue Cycle Solutions Consultants – Joline B...

Patient access remains a top concern for cardiovascular (CV) programs across the country. Its broad scope and complex dynamics make it a tricky problem to solve. To pave the way for open access, CV organizations must create governance and leadership structures that support a culture of access. In this episode, Joseph Goeke, MD, FACC, of St. Luke’s Cardiovascular Consultants, and MedAxiom’s Ginger...

“It’s not going to be getting back to normal; it’s going to be getting back to hopefully something better than normal, in terms of our care,” says Edward Fry, MD, FACC, Chair of the Cardiovascular Service Lines for St. Vincent Medical Group and Ascension Health. As they cautiously and steadily move toward reemergence, Dr. Fry describes the challenges of their dual focus – protect patients and staf...

Guests explain why PET imaging is their modality of choice for stress testing, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Christopher Douglas, MD, FACC, Interventional Cardiologist, and Jamie Branch, Lead Imaging Technologist, both from Heart & Vascular at Hattiesburg Clinic, also share how their organization has adapted protocols to keep patients and employees safe as pandemic restrictions ease and...

MedAxiom’s Nicole Knight, LPN, CPC, CCS-P, Vice President of Revenue Cycle Solutions and Consulting, shares the latest information on the COVID-19 crisis, covering top-of-mind issues for MedAxiom members and her pick for Story of the Week – an uplifting experience in the face of this unprecedented pandemic.