By Pawan Toshniwal – The industry spent the better part of a decade trying to make the phone matter less. Portals, online booking, text-to-schedule links. Some of it helped. Most of it didn’t move the needle the way we all expected. Patient access was supposed to go digital, and in plenty of ways it did. The phone just never stopped ringing.

The following recent state investments illustrates how CMS’ commitment to rural health modernization is taking shape on the ground, tailored to the unique needs of rural communities in Alaska, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Texas.

By Alexander Vitenas – A payment collected months before surgery and a payment collected after a procedure can leave the same balance due. But they tell different stories. One may be a prepayment tied to a planned treatment before a final charge existed. The other may be payment against an established balance. Looking only at the final number can hide how it came to be.

By Zac Amos – Healthcare systems depend on data exchange among electronic health records, connected medical devices and administrative networks. This creates environments where authorized clinical activity can closely resemble unauthorized access. Signature-based security tools may miss unauthorized activity that does not match a known attack pattern.