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Remote Patient Monitoring & Chronic Care Management

matias.troncoso@orbhealth.com (Matias T) — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 23:54:46 GMT

Remote Patient Monitoring & Chronic Care Management

What is Remote Patient Monitoring?

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) provides an easier way to collect patient vitals from wherever your patients are, along with other health-related data.

This solution uses telehealth technologies to accumulate patient data and transfer it to their healthcare providers electronically, so that the providers can review the information and recommend proper solutions remotely.

How Remote Patient Monitoring Works

With remote patient monitoring, providers are able to look after patients following release from the hospital. Providers can access various types of health data digitally and from one place, including vital signs, blood pressure, weight changes, heart rate updates, and more.

What is Chronic Care Management

Chronic care management (CCM) is an umbrella term for care given to chronically ill patients. Available to Medicare beneficiaries with two chronic conditions or more, providers generally offer this service non-face-to-face.

Common chronic conditions can range from (but are not limited to):

Cancer
HIV/AIDS
Lupus
Arthritis
Depression
Alzheimer’s Disease
Dementia
Autism
Diabetes
High Blood Pressure
Asthma
Heart Disease
Multiple Sclerosis

The Benefits of Remote Patient Monitoring & Chronic Care Management

Telehealth combined with remote patient monitoring has its fair share of benefits. For many healthcare practices, remote patient monitoring has lessened hospitalization and readmission rates, improved patient health on a broad scale, and has reduced exposure to viruses like COVID-19.

According to The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the facility maintained a patient satisfaction score of 90% with the help of remote patient monitoring.

Not only is it cost-effective, but it also presents an opportunity to gain a new source of revenue. Remote patient monitoring allows older patients to spend more time at home while receiving the attentive care that they need. This makes the solution ideal for those who have no desire to retreat at a nursing facility in their latter years. It’s also beneficial to chronically ill individuals.

Chronic conditions can severely affect a person’s quality of life. Through chronic care management, providers aim to improve these circumstances for their patients. The goal of this service is to provide patients with a support system as they work to achieve better health.

Chronic care management places a special emphasis on relationships between the patient and an appointed member of their care team. Patients have around-the-clock access to their care teams, treatment plans, and personal health data to ensure a positive remote experience.

Self-care matters, especially for chronically ill individuals. That’s why chronic care management prioritizes the patient’s individual needs above everything. This approach ensures that the patient can tend to their own health effectively, and also monitor vital details relating to their condition.

Patients who go through a chronic care management program may experience alleviated stress and pain, improved sleeping patterns, and an increase in physical fitness. In a perfect world, patients are also able to enjoy preferred activities that their chronic conditions kept them from doing.

Medicare covers both chronic care management and remote patient monitoring. Between 2015 and 2016, more than 684,000 beneficiaries received CCM care. Remote patient monitoring, specifically, is also payable by over 20 state Medicaid programs.

Some commercial insurance providers offer coverage for these services as well. Like always, it’s best to check with your provider to confirm. The extent of that coverage depends on the company’s telehealth policy.

7 Benefits of Telemedicine for Doctors and Patients

matias.troncoso@orbhealth.com (Matias T) — Sat, 30 May 2020 12:42:48 GMT

7 Benefits of Telemedicine for Doctors and Patients

The health care industry isn't typically considered the most innovative of spaces out there. After all, innovating in health care is faced with myriad challenges like fragmentation and increasing patient consumerism.

One recent innovation, though, is making serious waves in the industry. Telehealth is a rising star that, according to our analyses, has nowhere to go but up.

As a health care professional, you may be wondering about the benefits of telemedicine. That's why we want to show you what you and your patients have to gain from this innovative new method of medical care.

Curious about the top benefits of telehealth for you and your patients? We've got seven of them for you here, so check them out.

1 - Patients Don't Have to Miss Work to Get Care

In a 2014 study , researchers looked at the reasons why patients forego medical care. 15.6 percent of 1,369 total participants cited time constraints as the number one reason for skipping out on their annual check-up.

Patients with full-time jobs know all too well how difficult it is to organize the time for a doctor's appointment. There are commute times to consider and, sometimes, lost wages to stress about. For rural patients, these costs are often too high to justify.

With telehealth, patients don't have to miss work or make lengthy commutes for a 30-minute appointment. Patients get the care they need while practices reduce no-shows. In fact, one hospital saw a 50 percent reduction in no-shows after a year of using telehealth.

2 - Practices Save Money on Operational Cost

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center says it saves more than $86 each time a patient chooses telehealth over a traditional hospital visit. Why? In part, this is because telehealth cuts down on unnecessary trips to the hospital or, worse, the ER.

Telehealth allows physicians to treat common conditions with an in-person visit. For example, consider the fact that urinary tract infections (UTIs) and headaches are among the top five reasons people visit the ER . Both of these conditions are easily treatable at home.

Instead of wasting money on unnecessary hospital and ER admissions, providers can address non-serious conditions acutely. This not only saves you time but also money.

3 - Practices are More Likely to Engage with Providers

Patient satisfaction with an episode of care is highly dependent on convenience and quality. What's the best way to meet these expectations? According to a 2019 dataset from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), it's telehealth.

Convenience combines the need for easier access and more streamlined health care services. Telehealth helps hospitals achieve both of these goals by allowing patients to get care from a distance and without the hassles in-person visits often present.

Meanwhile, telehealth allows for a higher quality of care since patients get one-on-one attention. Patients can make more meaningful connections with their providers. Indeed, MGH's dataset showed that 66% of patients experienced stronger provider-patient interactions via telehealth than with in-person visits.

4 - Practices Can Increase Revenue

As we've mentioned already, telehealth is saving hospitals and practices countless dollars every year. It should be no surprise, then, that another benefit of telehealth is its revenue-boosting effect.

Telehealth appointments are much less time-consuming for providers, which means you might find yourself with extra time for more appointments. Some practices have begun extending their hours to take more telehealth visits in a day.

Perhaps more importantly, telehealth does reduce no-shows. That means less uncollected revenue for your practice and less wasted time for you and your colleagues. Plus, with increased patient satisfaction, practices can improve retention rates.

5 - Patients Get Better Access to Care

For rural patients, missing work for a doctor's appointment is the least of their concerns. Rural patients must drive hours for care and, often, the care they receive isn't of the same standard as urban facilities.

A recent survey spoke to this issue: 26 percent of rural patients don't see a health care professional for moderate to severe symptoms. Some of the reasons cited were as follows:

19% said they couldn't find an in-network provider
22% said they couldn't find an appointment that suited their schedules
23% said that geographic issues were to blame

At the same time, 36% of rural patients said their health would improve upon access to higher-quality medical care. The good news is telehealth is the solution rural patients have been searching for.

6 - Practices Can Improve Efficiency

A 2018 report from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) discussed the features of the top-performing hospitals in America. What do they have in common? These hospitals leverage technology and telehealth to streamline operations.

Telehealth benefits practices and hospitals by decreasing patient wait times while also upping patient volumes. At the same time, providers see improvements in patient satisfaction scores, which contribute to valuable retention rates.

Meanwhile, telehealth also facilitates quicker access to patient data. Rural patients, in particular, are notorious for having fractured patient health information. With telehealth, these patients see the same provider every time, making data collection easier and more accurate.

7 - Patients Will Save Money

Since the individual mandate was repealed, patients are paying higher out-of-pocket costs than ever before. In fact, many patients spent $5,000 or more on out-of-pocket medical expenses in 2017. The majority of these were patients with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs).

One response to this issue has been the introduction of telehealth. Not only is a telehealth visit cheaper than in-person care, but patients also save millions of dollars in travel costs. Indeed, Oregon Health and Science University says 45% of their patients saved $6.4 million travel costs by seeking telehealth instead of traditional care.

Plus, as their medical costs decrease, patients are more likely to pay promptly and in-full. That's great news for your hospital's or practice's margins.

The Benefits of Telemedicine are Here to Stay

Patients and physicians alike love telehealth, especially given the current situation. To harness the benefits of telemedicine, you've got to partner with the best technology provider around.

That's why you need My Access Telehealth.

Ready to begin your telehealth journey? Get in touch with us today to learn more about our incredible software products!

Do Patients See the Benefits of Telehealth? Let's Look at the Data.

matias.troncoso@orbhealth.com (Matias T) — Sat, 30 May 2020 12:42:48 GMT

Do Patients See the Benefits of Telehealth? Let's Look at the Data.

Are you a provider who hasn’t had much experience with telehealth? Have you considered using telehealth in your practice?

If so, check out this article. You will take a deep dive into the benefits of telehealth. Also, see how it improves patient satisfaction.

What is Telehealth?

Telehealth describes health care provided via a telecommunication approach . You may also hear it referred to as telemedicine or virtual health.

When face-to-face care is not an option, telehealth technologies can provide solutions. This strategy has been in use for many years to address the needs of rural communities. Today, it's become an important method for providing care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Telehealth Definition Framework was created by members of the National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers . Its purpose is to assist policymakers, clinicians, payers, and patients understand telehealth's role in providing healthcare services.

Telehealth includes the following care modalities:

Clinical diagnosis
Clinical monitoring
Education about the diagnosis
Diagnosis management and evaluation

Today, you will find telehealth in many of these locations:

Dentistry
Counseling
Physical therapy
Occupational therapy
Speech therapy
Home health
Chronic disease evaluation and management
Disaster management
Consumer and professional education

The options are almost limitless due to the wide use of electronics on a daily basis.

Benefits of Telehealth

We have discussed the broad access to telehealth which is one important benefit. Telehealth also offers many other benefits for providers and patients.

Patient Benefits

Some of the patient benefits of telemedicine include:

No commute required which saves time, childcare, and gas expense
Improved accessibility for those with disabilities
Increased access for those who are geographically distant or homebound
Increased access for people who are in long-term care or correctional facilities
Improved participation in preventative healthcare measures
Decreased chronic or severe disease due to health prevention
Increased convenience and less time spent obtaining healthcare
Decreased risk of contracting or spreading infection in a healthcare setting

Telehealth has definitely proven effective during the pandemic. Many patients may now prefer this method of healthcare, especially for routine monitoring.

Healthcare Provider Benefits

So how does telehealth benefit the provider? Consider the following examples:

Lower overhead due to less office space and support staff needs
Increased revenue because the clinician can treat more patients
Improved personal health due to less exposure to pathogens
Increased patient satisfaction which keeps the patients coming back

Can you envision a plan that incorporates telehealth into your current practice? The need for in-person visits will never go away. Yet, routine checks and follow-up on treatment modification could take place via telehealth.

Tips for Improving Telehealth Visits

When starting telehealth visits, there are several strategies for more effective encounters. The following are some tips from the Academy of Communication in Healthcare.

Be “Present”

Begin by making sure your technology is working. Do you have good quality audio and video? Gather all the materials you will need.

Mentally prepare or create an outline for what you want to address during the “visit”. Make sure that your environment is free of distractions.

Focus on the Patient’s Needs

Introduce yourself and establish a good rapport. Ask open-ended questions to encourage the patient to describe their needs. Help them explore their thoughts, concerns, and healthcare expectations.

Practice Active Listening

If you are on a video conference, attend to both verbal and nonverbal cues. Describe what you hear and/or see and validate that information with the patient. Address their concerns with empathy.

Provide the Patient With Information

Make sure that you limit the use of medical jargon. This can make the patient feel overwhelmed and reluctant to ask questions. Provide information in clear, concise bits and check for understanding.

Invite the patient to summarize their understanding of their plan of care. Remember that stress limits an individual’s ability to comprehend and retain information. Increased psychological disorders also increase physical health risks.

During this COVID-19 pandemic, make sure you assess each patient’s emotional well-being.

What Are Examples of Telehealth?

Telemedicine or telehealth can be accomplished in many ways. The following describes several different avenues in used today.

mHealth

About 95% of Americans have cell phones and 77% are smartphones. A new term, “mHealth”, has emerged to describe telehealth via mobile devices.

This may include video visits, chat or a traditional phone call between the provider and patient.

Video Telehealth

With real-time video communication platforms, distance becomes irrelevant. Providers can evaluate patients via video conferencing, video-scopes, and high-resolution cameras.

Video capabilities allow the clinician to view some of the patient's physical concerns. Specialists can also use these tools to perform pathology readings on specimens. This allows for remote diagnoses.

For physical, occupational, and speech therapists, video telehealth lets them watch activity performance. They can coach and correct the patient as they perform prescribed exercises.

RPM

Remote patient monitoring, or RPM, can be invaluable in monitoring and diagnosing diseases. The patient may wear an electronic device that transmits health data to the provider. Other mobile devices, smartphone apps, and internet-connected computers can also provide data.

This allows for monitoring over time. The patient often “marks” when they feel symptoms. Providers can have patients record their activity levels to test their physiological responses.

Some RPM technology is used to remind the patient to collect the data. For example, record and transmit their vital signs, blood sugar, oxygen level, weight, or cardiac data.

Are You Looking for a Telehealth Solution?

With the current state of world events, the face of healthcare is changing almost daily. It’s time to take a broader approach to providing healthcare. This article provided information about the benefits of telehealth.

At Access Telehealth, we provide state-of-the-art telehealth software for healthcare providers. Our customers include providers in almost every aspect of healthcare.

Our company is here to create a great telehealth experience for you and your patients. Contact us today to learn more about our products.