Who’s Paying for Remote Patient Monitoring?
Like so many things in medicine, a remote patient monitoring system could be financed a number of ways. And, as the demand and understanding of remote patient monitoring grows, no doubt will the number and types of payers footing the bill.
For Health Numeric, many of our clients are home health providers looking to provide a higher standard of care to their patients while reducing the amount of time their staff spends on travel. Because our system is a complete Care Circle, everyone from the patient’s children to his or her home nurse to the referring physician is linked together. The personalization allows the right people to be notified when self-recorded readings are outside of a set range. This system makes an ideal addition to the services of a home health company.
However, a number of other groups are becoming involved with paying for or reimbursing remote patient monitoring—including Medicare. Utilizing the code for chronic condition management, Medicare will reimburse for up to 20 minutes per patient per month of non-face to face appointments. Even now, some private insurers are following in the footsteps of Medicare in this area, but not many.
As we move from the fee for service model of care into the ACA, it’s inevitable that more of these telehealth solutions (including remote patient monitoring) will be relied upon by hospitals, physicians, and insurance companies to reduce hospital readmission rates. Health Numeric can be a key part of the team when patients return from a hospital stay and need to be monitored for a chronic condition. Click here to learn more about the Care Circle and the ROI of remote patient monitoring from our white paper.
Getting Staff On Board for Remote Patient Monitoring
You’ve done your homework. You understand remote patient monitoring and what Health Numeric can bring to the table for your organization. You’ve crunched the numbers and can see the ROI for implementing the system. However, one roadblock remains: getting your staff on board with utilizing the new technology.
Staff can be resistent to changes in general. Changing their routine, their comfort zone, their job duties can be met with less than enthusiastic responses. This is even true when the tools you are providing them will (in the end) make their jobs easier to perform. Technology is especially tricky. For staff who aren’t comfortable with computers and newer technology, getting them excited about remote patient monitoring is even more difficult. Computers and the software can be extremely intimidating, particularly for individuals who haven’t used computers as part of their job duties before.
However, at Health Numeric we are committed to making remote patient monitoring easy to implement and simple to use for both your staff and your patients. That’s why we work with you and your staff every step of the way—from installation to support.
Here are our best tips for making the transition go as smoothly as possible:
1. Focus on staff benefits. In general, it’s not about ROI and business costs for them. They will want to know how it helps them on a day-to-day basis. When rolling out your program, really double-down on how this change is going to be a positive, helpful tool in getting them jobs done and helping their patients.
2. Listen to feedback. Before implementing an RPM system, during the roll-out, and after, you’ll need to listen carefully to the feedback your team gives you. And be welcoming of the feedback. No, you can’t make everyone happy all the time, but you can listen, acknowledge, and find common ground.
3. Give staff the tools they need to succeed. There will be a learning curve for the new endeavor, and some staff members will embrace the change sooner than others. Give them the training and support they need to make the best attempt to understand and implement the system. Health Numeric makes this easy with our comprehensive training and support.
Contact us today about how we can help you transition your staff to utilizing our technology. Remote patient monitoring is helping patients all over the country be more independent, avoid readmittance, and stay healthy—all while uniting their Care Circle into a collaborative team.
Looking at Short-Term and Long-Term RPM
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) can be used in a variety of ways to monitor many different types of people and for a range of purposes. From relatively short-term engagements to lifelong monitoring, there are many individuals who could benefit from the use of remote patient monitoring.
The most popular use of this technology today is to monitor patients who have recently been discharged from the hospital and are struggling to manage a chronic illness. Frequently, these are individuals with COPD, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, or obesity who are trying to avoid readmittance to the hospital. RPM gives patients the benefits of constant monitoring without being in the hospital or daily visits from a home care nurse. Early identification of complications allow these patients to seek medical help from their primary care physician before their condition worsens to the point of needing the emergency room.
This type of short-term monitoring generally lasts between 30 and 90 days, until the patient is stable and least likely to need hospital readmittace. Health Numeric helps home health companies set up remote patient monitoring for these situations. The benefits for RPM for home health companies include: lowering the number of patients readmitted to the hospital, giving staff a tool to monitor patients with less travel, and improving patient involvement in their own care.
We see movement in the RPM arena for companies to branch into more long-term monitoring opportunities. From employers to insurance companies, many groups involved in paying for health care will be looking for ways to improve health and prevent chronic illness. Individuals are already using technology as a tool to take control of their health—from heart monitors to sleep tracking, FitBits to Bluetooth connected bathroom scales, the public is moving in the right direction. Health Numeric is working with different partners to find ways to maximize the use of the individual tools, as well as pulling all the data together in a usable format.
This newer application of long-term monitoring could potentially go way beyond the 90 day window of current monitoring. Individuals could use RPM to reach weight loss, blood sugar, cholesterol, or other goals, or to maintain their current status. Specific monitoring could last years for individuals with genetic markers or risks. There are many applications for this type of RPM, and for a variety of groups looking to lower medical costs.
Contact us today to find out how Health Numeric can help you with your short or long-term RPM needs.
RPM vs. Telehealth
In order to best understand the Health Numeric solution, you have to understand that Health Numeric is different from teleheath and even most remote patient monitoring. While our product is a type of RPM, the differences found in our solution change and save lives.
While telehealth communication and remote patient monitoring may be similar, the differences are important to understand in order to fully grasp the experiences they offer. Primarily, telehealth communications offer long-distance clinical health care. For example, the technologies used include videoconferencing, secure email and messaging, and phone calls. Telehealth is mainly done through the Internet to communicate in various ways with a health care provider.
Remote patient monitoring, or RPM, uses devices to remotely collect, store and communicate biometric health information to practitioners. Instead of talking with a health care provider online, the RPM tools allow providers to accurately monitor and intervene in the patient’s care before he/she presents at the doctor’s office or hospital. RPM devices capture patients’ vitals outside of a traditional clinical setting while capitalizing on proactive care and patient mobility.
Health Numeric takes this proactive care a step further with our unique Care Circle solution that gives our patients full control over who has access and receives alerts or reports based on their data. Our easy to administer solution makes health care collaboration intuitive and accessible.
Interested in learning more about the Health Numeric solution? Contact us today for your free trial!
What is a Care Circle?
Our remote patient monitoring goes beyond monitors, vitals, and reports. When you choose Health Numeric, your patient is linked to a circle of care providers that will give them the best chance to recover without readmittance to the hospital.
We think of our Care Circle as a collaboration management system—a way to facilitate the collaboration between different care providers. Ultimately the improvement in communication gives patients a better outcome.
By connecting patients and their loved ones, their healthcare team, and their home health company, patients feel more empowered while their families feel more secure. Home health providers save time and money by monitoring more patients with less manpower, all while improving outcomes and providing physicians the information they need. Learn more about Health Numeric and schedule your free demo today!
Remote Patient Monitoring: Care Circle
Remote Patient Monitoring is a more connected form of healthcare. Patients living at home with some assistance can benefit greatly from using RPM devices, receiving better care from their aides, nurses and doctors. Because the patient’s health is being monitored from home, their caregivers can address any type of changes or declines in the patient’s health immediately. Patients can create what’s called a Care Circle once they receive their device. Not only will their nurse be notified of changes in the patient’s measurements, anyone the patient adds to their Care Circle will also be notified. The connectivity of the Care Circle ensures better care for the patient and a more comprehensive picture of their health for their caretakers and doctors.
Better, more connected care for the patient means less time spent in the hospital. It also reduces the likelihood of emergency room visits, helps to keep their medication dosage under control and creates peace of mind for those in their Care Circle. Doctors know that their patients are being monitored meticulously, so patient’s length of hospitalization can be reduced. Readmission rates go down because problems with the patient’s medication dosage or health can be addressed in real time, instead of only during outpatient visits, or in the hospital.
The convenience and peace of mind that RPM provides to patients, their doctors and those in their Care Circles is paramount to Health Numeric. Users can decide who views their measurements and when, and their doctors can set the parameters for notification. This helps diabetes patients keep their glucose levels under control; CHF patients can measure their blood press, weight and oxygen saturation. Remote Patient Monitoring helps to create a more complete health history for its users, and unites patients and their loved ones with a deeper understanding of the patient’s health.