Telephonic care management leads the list of remote patient monitoring strategies.
Remote patient monitoring in all its embodiments is here to stay, as results from our 2014 survey validate, with everything from interactive voice response (IVR) to video visits to home sensors driving results in population health management, particularly for the frail elderly.
Even CMS shows signs of softening its stance toward telemedicine. A key provision of a May 2014 rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services removed some barriers surrounding the umbrella issue of telehealth. In particular, this rule reduced the burden on very small critical access hospitals, rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) by no longer holding physicians hostage to a prescriptive onsite schedule. This provision addresses the geographic barriers and remoteness of many rural facilities, and recognizes telemedicine improvements and expansions that allow physicians to provide many types of care at lower costs, while maintaining high-quality care.
More of these concessions are likely to come as the industry embraces value-based care and the market for devices to track home-based biometrics and activity continues to explode.
But sometimes, it's not the clinical emergency averted by the use of remote monitoring but the assurance provided by a simple phone call. Analytics by naviHealth, a convener in the CMS Bundled Payments pilot, identified healthcare utilization patterns by the elderly that might benefit from telephonic care management.
"Often we found that some of our beneficiaries re-admit [to the hospital] because they simply want social interaction with someone else. A telephone call can sometimes be gratifying enough for that beneficiary so that they're not seeking social engagement back at the hospital again," notes Kelsey Mellard, vice president of partnership marketing and policy with naviHealth.
"It can be very simple telephonic care management in the form of brief conversations," she concludes.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014 at 2:52 pm	and is filed under Bundled Payments, Telehealth & Telemedicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.