by Michalene Kinsler | Jun 15, 2021 | Telehealth, Long Term Care, Senior Care, Telemedicine
Experiences from COVID, Use Cases, and Impact
Given the opportunity to quickly prove its efficacy and customer appetite for connecting with care providers virtually, telehealth has more than proven the model works and works well. There is also consensus in the industry that the former regulatory and reimbursement barriers that were rapidly removed during COVID will not go back to the old normal. Evidence of this keeps emerging with CMS rulings and clarifications that signal this intent. The question for those in Senior and Long-Term Care who are now looking at their post-pandemic clinical, operational and business environment to make IT strategy decisions is: Where to go next in telehealth and virtual care?
By now, almost all providers have found a way to do virtual visits with the patients and residents they serve. A first step in evaluating your IT strategy for any purpose is to take a critical look at those solutions and workflows you are using with either a full or a targeted assessment. If done well, this assessment should provide you with the necessary insight to confidently map out your short and long term plans based on your current state and an inventory of your telehealth and virtual care capabilities.
This provides the opportunity to determine if you have the capabilities to meet the clinical, technical and operational objectives of your organization. You can examine if there are ways to optimize what you already have and be well positioned for the future.
For many organizations the near term objectives include improving access to care, decreasing the cost of providing care and maximizing reimbursement. Consider if your technology allows you to:
- Meet the new and increased demands on your infrastructure. This includes internet, Wi-Fi, connectedness, and the ability to share the needed data through integrations and interoperability.
- Optimize your processes and workflows. Consider the operations that can and should be automated. Explore any additional customization and training that would lead to better performance.
- Enhance and improve the experience that patients, residents, families, staff and partner organizations have with your organization. Right now, the expectations are especially high and best practices for communication, feedback and recognition have significantly shifted to include having a strong digital presence. Many organizations have moved much of their interactions to a digital or even mobile first model and have rounded out their offerings with quality of life and hospitality elements like wellness programming and education, menus and meals, activities and content that adds value.
- Maximize reimbursement for the clinical services you are providing and plan to provide. Changes to the way some clinical services can be billed could significantly increase the ROI for adding increased telehealth, RPM and CCM capabilities for appropriate use cases. Your IT strategy should help you maximize this revenue capture and enable the services that will be provided going forward.
Consider leveraging people with experience and expertise. Strategic Interests can help your organization with a Telehealth and Virtual Care assessment and strategy. Please contact Michalene Kinsler at mkinsler@strategicinterests.com to schedule an introductory call.
Let us help you put the right technology in place so your organization can focus on delivering care to the people you serve.
by Michalene Kinsler | Sep 21, 2020 | Telehealth, Telemedicine
Telehealth and Virtual Care continues to be a focus of delivering safe, effective care during COVID and a cornerstone of addressing issues of access for rural and underserved populations.
As part of the CARES Act, $200 million was designated for telehealth programs and was quickly awarded to both large and small providers in an effort to rapidly increase the availability of virtual visits, remote monitoring and other types of connected care.
Continuing with that focus, the FCC will make funding available through the Universal Service Fund (USF) as the Connected Care Pilot Program (Pilot Program) to help defray the costs of providing connected care services. The emphasis on supporting these services will be for low-income Americans and Veterans. The Pilot Program will make available up to $100 million available over a three-year funding period and will be separate from the budgets of the existing Universal Service Fund (USF) programs.
For those projects that are selected, the Pilot Program will cover 85% of the eligible costs of
(1) patient broadband internet access services
(2) health care provider broadband data connections
(3) other connected care information services, and
(4) certain network equipment (e.g., equipment necessary to make a supported broadband service function such as routers)
Unlike the FCC Covid Telehealth Program, this will not fund end-user devices or medical equipment and will require a competitive bidding process. The intention is to address a wide variety of health challenges such as diabetes management, opioid dependency, high-risk pregnancies, pediatric heart disease, mental health conditions, and cancer. Information on eligibility and guidelines is available and the timeline is expected to be released soon. Organizations can submit an eligibility determination ahead of the full announcement – see links at end of this post.
Also in the interest of expanding coverage to rural areas, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report on existing and upcoming efforts to improve rural healthcare. This report, the Rural Action Plan, is the first HHS-wide assessment of rural healthcare efforts in more than 18 years and the product of HHS’s Rural Task Force, a group of experts and leaders across the department first put together by Secretary Alex Azar in 2019.
This action plan provides a roadmap for HHS to strengthen departmental coordination to better serve the millions of Americans who live in rural communities across the United States. Eighteen HHS agencies and offices took part in developing the plan, which includes 71 new or expanded activities for FY 2020 and beyond. Efforts that will be undertaken in FY 2020 include nine new rural-focused administrative or regulatory actions, three new rural-focused technical assistance efforts, 14 new rural research efforts, and five new rural program efforts. These efforts build on 94 new rural-focused projects the HHS Rural Task Force identified as having launched over the past three years.
This report outlines the key challenges facing rural communities related to issues such as emerging health disparities, chronic disease burden, high rates of maternal mortality and limited access to mental health services. The plan lays out a four-point strategy to transform rural health and human services, with a number of actions that can be launched within weeks or months. The four points of the strategy are:
- Building a sustainable health and human services model for rural communities
- Leveraging technology and innovation
- Focusing on preventing disease and mortality
- Increasing rural access to care
More funding through programs like these and improved coordination across agencies and providers could provide the foundation for truly addressing how to deliver care when and where it is needed – especially for those most in need.
For more information:
by Michalene Kinsler | Nov 15, 2017 | Telemedicine
As a market sector, healthcare can sometimes be slow to adopt new and emerging technology but there have been several recent “wins” that give advocates of telemedicine reason for optimism. The passing of the Veterans E-Health and Telemedicine Support Act of 2017 (VETS Act) in the US House of Representatives, is another step toward integrating telemedicine into mainstream healthcare. It allows for telemedicine in the VA to be provided across state lines, moving toward “anywhere to anywhere” healthcare as described by the VA Secretary David Shulkin. This shift forward, if the companion bill passes in the Senate, will likely increase access to telemedicine across other sectors of healthcare as well as it signals an increasing acceptance of the technology. http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/8-reasons-why-telehealth-gaining-momentum-right-now
This legislation comes shortly after new payment rules were released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The CMS’ Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) improvements, includes changes which would enable doctors using “non-face-to-face chronic care management using remote monitoring and or telehealth technology” to receive Advancing Care Information (ACI) program points for activities such as sending medication reminders, collecting, monitoring and reviewing patient physiological data and prescribing patient education.
Of concern is the infrastructure needed to support telemedicine. Some aspects of telemedicine, like remote monitoring, use lower levels of internet connectivity and may be easier to deploy. As the standard shifts toward more video conferencing that requires high speed internet at both ends of the visit, a lack of infrastructure can be a barrier to full use of the technology. Many rural communities don’t have the broadband infrastructure that is needed. There is proposed legislation that addresses the problem and, if adopted, could help move the process forward.
While these recent changes are very good signs for the advancement of telemedicine, there is still much about the technology that will need to be supported and understood to realize all the potential benefits. If done well, emerging research is showing both clinical and financial benefits for providers and patients across many different settings. Frequently in healthcare, it is legislation that triggers interest in new technology so expect more and more stakeholders to recognize the growing appeal of telemedicine.
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