Healthix offers its Participants the option of implementing a consent workflow allowing patients to give their consent to ALL Healthix Participants on a special consent form. Healthix Community Consent enables patients to provide consent, with one signature, for ALL Participants in Healthix to access their data (for purposes permitted by Healthix Policy) rather than making a consent decision for only one Participant at a time. The new consent form gives patients the option to give or deny consent to ALL Participants or Your Organization Only. (The form allow allows patients to give consent for a Medical Emergency Only, for provider organizations which deliver emergency services, such as a Hospital ED or an acute care facility.)
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Offering Healthix Community Consent will accelerate the ability of all Participants to access patient data and receive Clinical Event Notifications for treatment, care management and quality improvement purposes. This fosters collaborative care among Participants who coordinate and deliver care for the patient, with one single consent decision. Healthix Community Consent supports value-based payment programs such as the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Program, as well as organizations that provide care management but do not typically have encounters or contact with patients or members, such as Health Plans.
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Healthix Participants vary by the type of organization as well as the type of electronic health record (EHR) they’ve deployed. Healthix can work with your IT team and vendors to configure your registration system and design a workflow that can support Healthix Community Consent. If you are interested in implementing Healthix Community Consent for your organization, please contact us at 877-695-4749 / Innovation Team or info@healthix.org
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Single-Participant Consent given prior to the implementation of Healthix Community Consent will remain in effect until the patient signs a new Healthix consent form. Patient consent provided through Healthix Community Consent, after Single-Participant consent was previously provided, will apply to ALL Healthix Participants as of the date and time the patient signed the Community Consent form – including the Participant where Single-Participant consent was previously provided (i.e. your organization).
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Participants offering Healthix Community Consent must provide the patient with an updated printed list of Healthix Community Participants (“Healthix Community Participant List”). Healthix provides this list electronically to organizations which offer Healthix Community Consent, on a monthly basis. Participants who join Healthix subsequent to the printed list (i.e. following the date the Healthix Community Consent was granted), do not “inherit” the consent decision. The patient grants consent based on the list he/she is given, agreeing to authorize access only by Participants on the Healthix Community Participant List at the time of consent. This is required by SAMHSA regulations, because Healthix includes data received from 42 CFR Part 2 facilities.
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Healthix will be the “source of truth” for consent going forward. Consent values previously recorded in a Participant’s registration system may not match consent values recorded in Healthix as a result of later Healthix Community Consent given elsewhere. Healthix offers options for Participants to obtain the latest consent decision for each patient through: a web services solution, access to the Healthix Hosted Registration tool in the Healthix Portal, or a weekly distribution of patient consent values from Healthix.
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New York State Dept. of Health policy requires all Healthix Participants to audit, at least once a year, the consent forms they have recorded. As always, Healthix will work with your organization to prepare for the annual consent audit and will provide training and support for all audit activities.
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Interested in learning more about Healthix Community Consent or how your provider (organization) can participate? A Healthix staff member is available to answer questions. Contact us at info@healthix.org or call 877-695-4749 and ask to speak with a Healthix Account Manager or Compliance Coordinator.
